


Exactly Like You

by Jerakeen



Series: Jerakeen's Bondfic (a list) [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Pride and Prejudice Fusion, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Derek is A LOT Darcy, Families of Choice, Ghosts, Ghouls, M/M, Magic Stiles, Minor Character Death, Omega Stiles, Soul Bond, Stiles Cooks, Stiles is a little Elizabeth, They suck at being in love, Trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:35:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 70,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28461765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jerakeen/pseuds/Jerakeen
Summary: “It was Jackson’s idea,” Lydia explains, looking perfectly serious while standing in front of a March Madness bracket of Beacon Hills’ eligible bachelors.Jackson looks smug. “It only makes sense.”Stiles meets Isaac’s eyes over the heads of all the crazy people in the room. Isaac shrugs with a slight wince. “’Tis the season.”
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Jerakeen's Bondfic (a list) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/41181
Comments: 926
Kudos: 1293





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to post this chapter by chapter but it turns out I need a little push to finish editing it. Also, start as you mean to go on, right? Not like I've got anything else to do at midnight on NYE.
> 
> Many thanks to ambersnake for alpha reading (is that a thing?) and seleneheart for the beta.

# 1

> _ “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."  _

Stiles leans against the rough bark of the tree stump and contemplates the nature of love, marriage, and matchmaking.

More than anything though, he ponders the possibility of avoiding Lydia’s attempts at finding his “soulmate” or at least someone who’ll do, _don’t be obtuse Stiles you do have to marry some time_ , for yet another year.

The magic eight ball in his head says _don’t count on it_. His stomach counters that with a reminder that while Lydia is undoubtedly a pain in Stiles’ butt, she does feed him every time, and he’s getting pretty hungry.

He sighs and closes his book. He hasn’t been able to concentrate on a word of it anyway.

A finch warbles in the background as he runs a hand over the remains of the old tree, a thanks and an apology in one, and pushes himself up to face the day. His Jeep is a ten-minute walk away, and he takes a different path than he did at daybreak, making the acquaintance of new trees and discovering a small fairy ring on the way.

It’s the first of May and arguably the best time of the year to be in the forest. Everything’s cheerful and colorful and alive. Nothing gets Stiles’ nerves settled as well and as fast as this place. In fact, he may come back this afternoon, depending on Lydia’s enthusiasm and his ability to metabolize it.

He’s out of the preserve before he knows it, and from there it’s only a four-minute drive to Lydia and Jackson’s house.

He parks on the street and gets out, jumps over the fence where a section was fixed just last winter (it broke while he was jumping over it, but shhh), skips along the line of pink miniature roses, and enters through the kitchen door. Inside, Isaac and Allison are chatting over a box of donuts, Jackson’s sprawled on the couch, reading something on his tablet, and of course Danny’s already there, and _dear god_ , they set up a dry-erase board.

Lydia walks in just as Allison takes her seat – they all have their own seats in Lydia’s living room by now – wearing heels in her own home like an insane person, and her hair in a high ponytail, which is never a good sign.

“Time to get serious,” she says, nodding to Danny, who flips the board to reveal a chart of some kind.

“Is that—" Stiles squints, but no, they wouldn’t.

“It was Jackson’s idea,” Lydia explains, looking perfectly serious while standing in front of a March Madness bracket of Beacon Hills’ eligible bachelors.

Jackson looks smug. “It only makes sense.”

Stiles meets Isaac’s eyes over the heads of all the crazy people in the room. Isaac shrugs with a slight wince. “’Tis the season.”

Stiles is alone in his pain as always. He picks up a jelly donut and tries to disappear among the cushions. “I hate all of you so much.”

-

“The Hales?!” Stiles sputters, spewing crumbs all over Allison, who punches him away from her. Stiles would care except—the frickin’ Hales? “No,” he says, pointing at Lydia with great contempt. Then at Jackson, and then at Danny, who looks way too innocent to actually be innocent. “No, no, and no. I object!”

Lydia rolls her eyes at him. “Can we be done with the dramatics? I also have Greenberg on this board. Beacon Hills isn’t exactly a thriving metropolis; we have to consider everyone.”

“I’d rather marry Greenberg,” Stiles offers.

Allison, conveniently sitting between Lydia and Stiles, raises her palms in a conciliatory manner. “We don’t even know that they’re interested. This is just conjecture.”

“Oh, please,” Jackson drawls. “They’ve been rebuilding the house. They’re returning just at the beginning of the season. They’re interested alright.”

Danny and Lydia nod. The scheming trio always back each other up on matters of matchmaking. How come nobody ever backs Stiles up? He objects to that too while he’s at it.

“You know that a single rich alpha entering the neighborhood _has got to be_ looking for an omega to bond with,” Isaac admonishes Stiles.

“ _Three_ single rich alphas,” Lydia corrects him, “that we know of.”

Stiles glares. “Be still my heart.”

“Hey, maybe _I’ll_ snag one,” Danny tells him. “Werewolf alphas are hot.”

“You’re welcome to them,” Stiles graciously agrees. “And you too Isaac. Maybe Allison will get the third and I’ll be left with my one true love, Greenberg.”

The meeting only goes downhill from there. Lydia has a list of invites she already accepted on their behalf, and a list of outfits Stiles _has to_ buy because no, of course he can’t re-wear last year’s clothes, _boring is not the look we’re going for here, Stiles_.

Just seeing the calendar she put together for the season, three endless months of parties and picnics and other assorted shindigs, is enough to give Stiles a headache, not to mention the pre-season prep she’s planned for them.

Stiles sees the days marked for shopping (with Jackson!) and can’t breathe.

“I have to get started on dinner,” he claims, getting up.

“Stiles, it’s barely noon.”

“Yup! Totally!” Stiles nods with the biggest smile on his face and runs before they can grab him.

-

The season – the _omega_ season as his dad’s generation calls it, as if they’re out there hunting omegas – is from June through August every year, and Stiles has been attending since he was sixteen.

Six years is a long-ass time.

It used to be fun, once upon a time. It was an excuse to dress up, hang out with his friends, feel that zing of excitement at the thought of meeting someone special… but then years passed, he got older, the parties got stale, and the season became just a reminder of how he wasn’t bonded, wasn’t married, wasn’t even close.

And the worst part is, Stiles doesn’t even mind being single.

He’s doing what he wants to be doing with his life. He has his dad, great friends, a good job; he’s satisfied with the way things are, he really is. People talk but they always do, he’s not going to let the bored small-town folk tell him when to bond or who to marry. No, it’s not his dashed romantic hopes or peer pressure, he just dreads the look on his dad’s face every time he remembers that his son is a single omega.

Stiles won’t be able to inherit anything, is the thing. He knows it’s giving his dad nightmares; Stiles can see it in the bags under his eyes. They don’t have much, they never did, but his dad’s worked hard all his life to provide him with a comfortable home, and if the unthinkable happened one of these days and his dad— Stiles doesn’t like to think about this. The laws are old and backwards and need to be changed. But the way things stand, omegas can’t own property, they can only work under certain conditions, they can’t even travel without a chaperone.

His options have always been limited. It’s the hand he’s been dealt. Stiles can rant and rage, and he does, but at the end of the day it is what it is.

Bonding with an alpha would solve the problem. Hell, marrying a beta would be enough. It’s just the omegas the society seems to hate.

Lydia’s determined to get someone rich for him. Well, for him and Isaac, because Danny has siblings to guarantee inheritance and his family’s well enough off to satisfy her standards. Stiles’ parents also planned for siblings, but things didn’t work out the way they intended. After his mom passed away, his dad never recovered enough to date, let alone get married a second time. The one time Stiles thought he might consider it—well, let’s just say things didn’t work out and leave it at that. Stiles can’t bring himself to wish for anything different because at the end of the day, his dad and their little family unit are his absolute favorite things in life.

Now Isaac is a whole other story. Even Stiles is hoping for a happily ever after with someone rich and awesome for him. Stiles may not be wealthy or particularly attractive, but at least he has his dad, whose job also brings a certain respectability to his son, if not prestige. All Isaac gets to have is the memory of abuse and a fear of small spaces. No mom, no dad, no siblings. If it weren’t for his ninety-year-old grandmother, Isaac would be homeless or in the system. Not that his friends would ever let that happen, but still. It’s a scary thought.

Stiles finds himself in front of his house with no memory of having driven and parks his butt on the couch. He waits for his heart to stop skittering in his chest, but it doesn’t happen. He fidgets, picks up the remote, imagines turning on the TV, puts it back down. He fluffs a pillow, and then tries to smother himself with it.

Lydia means well. She wants what’s best for him. As pragmatic as she can be, she’s also a romantic who married her high school sweetheart straight out of school. She’s smart and settled and probably the only reason Stiles is ever invited to anything. Being best friends with two alphas from two of the most prominent families in Beacon Hills is something people envy him for, he knows that. While he thinks they envy him for the wrong reasons, he gets how lucky he is.

As always, he will do as Lydia says, he will. He just… He shakes out his hands, stretches his fingers. He just needs some stress relief.

He could go for a run in the preserve? But no, his favorite trail goes up by the old Hale house and by now the construction crews must’ve started making a racket up there. He could—oh, he could go pet the puppies at Deaton’s. He did say he didn’t want to see Stiles for at least a week the last time he was there, but maybe with a little bribe?

He gets into the kitchen and pulls out the ingredients for Deaton’s favorite oatmeal raisin cookies.

He can even get started on dinner at the same time. Cooking is good. Productive. Routine. That’s what he needs. Routine, and cookies, and puppies. He’ll be fine in no time.

-

The cookies turn out great, the puppies are cute enough to rot his teeth, and Deaton tolerates him with just a couple of heavy sighs, but at the end of the day Stiles still feels off, something inside him vibrating like a siren bouncing off the walls.

“Headache?” his dad asks when Stiles snuggles into him, his arm coming up around Stiles’ shoulders, pulling down the afghan at the back of the couch on the way.

Stiles hmms. “Lydia.”

“Oh, right.” His dad knows all about Lydia’s ways. He turns down the volume of the movie neither of them is really watching. “She’s been planning.”

Stiles shuts his eyes and breathes deep, in through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

“I hear the Hales are coming back,” his dad comments casually.

Stiles’ eye gives a threatening twitch. “I don’t know why everyone thinks that’s my business.”

“Oh, come on,” his dad wheedles. “I’m sure you’ve missed Scott.”

Stiles did miss Scott. That doesn’t mean he’s not still angry at him. At Melissa, who took Stiles’ best friend away and left him all alone. At Derek frickin’ Hale, who could go to hell with all his money for all Stiles cares. “I’m sure he won’t be allowed to socialize with a lowly human like me.”

His dad sighs and gives his shoulder a squeeze. “Everything will be fine. Don’t stress yourself out. You know it gives you insomnia, and if you start walking around with red eyes Lydia will try putting makeup on you again.”

“Makeup is the least of my worries. She’s sending me _shopping_. With _Jackson_.”

“I know,” his dad says, and Stiles can hear the smile in his tone without looking. “She already consulted me on the budget.”

Stiles makes dying whale noises.

His dad gets serious. “Son, you know you don’t have to do any of it.”

Stiles loves his dad so much that his heart can’t contain it sometimes. “Nah.” His fake casual tone is even worse than his dad’s, but he has to keep up the facade, for both their sakes. “It’s just a little embarrassing at my age, that’s all.”

His dad ‘tsks’ at him. “Now that’s nonsense. Coach Finstock still attends.”

“That, I believe, is what they call a self-own, dad. But thanks for trying anyway.”

-

“I hear they’re bringing twelve omegas and seven alphas,” Heather says with an excited grin.

Stiles almost chokes on his burger.

“I heard it’s six omegas,” Isaac chimes in. He’s behind the counter, just starting his shift.

Stiles takes a big bite and wonders as he chews, “Are they coming for an invasion?”

Isaac shrugs and hands him a napkin. “Beacon Hills _is_ their territory.”

“Which they’ve all but abandoned,” Stiles grumbles.

He can’t even enjoy his lunch without people bringing up the Hale Pack left and right. Maybe it’ll be better when they come, and everyone sees what a bunch of assholes they are. Or maybe it’ll be even worse, and they’ll bring an army of alphas and omegas, and the matchmakers of Beacon Hills will have a collective orgasm.

Maybe, just maybe, they should stay the hell in New York and out of Stiles’ metaphorical hair.

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Heather tells him. “You can’t really blame them for not wanting to be here after the fire.”

Stiles makes a face into his food. He saves his empathy for people who deserve it but whatever. Heather always was a bleeding heart, too soft for her own good.

He sneaks a glance at her as Isaac hands her the cup of coffee she ordered.

She’s the ideal omega, in a girl-next-door type of way. Pretty, soft spoken, kind. And Isaac, he may be an acerbic son-of-a-bitch around his friends, but he does have a certain angelic quality to him. He’s lean and has those cheekbones, and for that brief couple of months he dated Allison, Stiles glimpsed at something under the surface that he hadn’t realized was there before. Isaac will come into his own with the right partner, he’s sure of it. Someone to look after him and give him the confidence to look after them in return. He’s actually caring to a fault; he just tries to hide it from most people.

And that’s what people look for in omegas, isn’t it?

Stiles—now he’s a different story altogether.

The only ‘desirable’ omega quality he ever had is his cooking and isn’t that just awesome; he’ll get to attract alphas looking for good cooks! The omega stereotype is bullshit of course, they’re as varied as betas and alphas in the end, but the whole matchmaking institution is built on that idea. People come with that blueprint in mind, look for someone that fits.

Alphas want to see Jackson’s pretty features on their omegas, Heather’s kind heart, Isaac’s caring nature, Danny’s easygoing attitude. Stiles has absolutely none of that, which is why despite not pursuing a college education and needing a match pretty seriously, he’s managed to avoid attention of any and all alphas for years. No one’s ever interested in him. Isaac dated Allison, at least, and he always has suitors anyway, every season a couple of alphas show interest. His family’s situation has been sabotaging his courtships so far, but it’ll happen one of these days, Stiles just knows it. And Danny’s hot commodity; only single because he prefers to be. Allison is an alpha; she gets to take her time and make her own choice—or _not_ make it as the case may be. While Stiles. Well.

Good thing he likes himself just fine, or the way things stand Stiles could so easily develop a complex.

“So, are you ready for tomorrow?” Isaac asks, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Did she make you get a pedicure? It’s a ball, who’s gonna look at my feet?”

“She means well,” Isaac says, “I think.”

“She means _something_ but I’m not sure we wanna know.”

“At least we’ll get to see how many omegas the Hales bring with them,” Isaac offers.

“However will I sleep tonight.”

-

‘Two omegas’ is the answer to the question of the year, and two alphas. Not even the three Lydia expected, let alone the army the rumors predicted.

Derek Hale is there, of course, minus his signature leather jacket, and Scott—once best friend turned, well, not much of anything really. Random werewolf acquaintance? Not even that, probably. They have two omega ladies with them, very blonde, very pretty. Clearly werewolves and young—both younger than Stiles. They can’t be Hales with that coloring, so maybe Derek’s… something?

Could Lydia’s intel be that bad? Not only are they missing the third alpha but is Derek Hale also taken after all?

These are the things Stiles doesn’t wonder about – _at all_ – unless someone talks his ear off on the subject for a whole month and scrambles his brains.

Lydia joins him with a wide smile and surreptitiously fixes his tie.

She let him pick a green suit for the inaugural ball, last year’s black tux having been fitted for Isaac who looks better in it than Stiles ever could’ve hoped to. He doesn’t care much about clothes when it comes down to it but leave him to shop for himself and he tends to go for dark reds and greens and plaid, which is why Lydia doesn’t. She seems to have gone soft in her old age though, judging by her instructions to Jackson this year. “Something with character,” Jackson quoted his wife. “But you know, not too much of it.”

“At least pretend you’re having a good time,” she tells Stiles, her smile seemingly frozen in place.

Stiles puts on a mock grin. “How’s this? Am I attractive now? Are alphas lining up?”

Lydia slaps him over the head. Now see, this is more like her. Stiles’ grin turns real. “I _am_ having a good time. Allison’s getting me a drink. We’re going to get drunk to make the werewolves jealous.”

Lydia’s smile turns into a smirk, and then quickly melts into something soft and satisfied. Jackson’s arm has wrapped around her waist. She leans into him instinctively. They look insanely attractive together and so happy that it’s hard to look directly at them.

“You two are disgusting,” he states, accepting the huge glass of something Allison hands him and taking a large gulp. It burns all the way down. He fist-bumps Allison. “Impressive.”

She curtsies. “Good sir.”

“You wanna dance?” He wiggles his eyebrows at her. “Before we get too drunk?”

She takes his glass and hands both drinks to Isaac, too excited to listen to his grumbling. “Let’s do this!”

Stiles takes her hand.

They’ve danced with each other more times than Stiles can count, and it’s honestly one of his favorite things. He loves dancing, and he especially loves dancing with the people he loves. He spins Allison until she starts laughing and then pulls her in, letting her take the lead from there because she never can help herself.

“So, Derek Hale looks like he bit into a lemon,” she observes once they’re settled into the rhythm.

Stiles snorts. “It’s his natural state of being.”

“Your best friend though—“

“Ex,” Stiles interrupts her. “Ex-best friend.”

She rolls her eyes. “Right. I was just saying, he’s hot.”

“Eh,” Stiles lets out. “Once you’ve seen someone throw up on the swings, you just can’t find them attractive anymore.” He takes in Scott’s wide shoulders in his perfectly fitted tux and has to grudgingly agree. “I guess, if you like lopsided chins.”

“You should introduce us.”

“ _Why_ ,” Stiles whines, head dropping onto her shoulder. “Why are you all doing this to me!”

Her hand is cradling the back of his head gently, but he can feel her laughing at him. Traitors, the whole lot of them.

“Wouldn’t it be interesting to have your ex-best friend meet your new best friend?”

Stiles groans, realizes the strap of her dress is probably leaving a mark on his forehead, and straightens, giving her a you’re-dead-to-me look.

Then he says, “You’re too good for him,” and completely undermines himself.

Allison smiles and dips him with a whoop.

-

Stiles loves Allison like the sister he was always meant to have, but even for her, all he can manage is a drive-by introduction: _heyyy Scott, how’ve you been, this is Allison, oh is that the time, gotta go, bye._

He observes from across the room as Allison dimples at Scott shyly, and Scott gets the same look in his eyes as when he saw a motorcycle for the first time at age seven and started saving for his own immediately. So they hit it off, fine, _fiiine_ , what does Stiles care. It’s not like it’s going to come to anything. Dimples and motorcycle stares don’t necessarily mean true love. It could be a crush. It could be just sex. God, please let it be just sex.

Lydia’s dancing with Danny, so Stiles keeps Jackson company, by which he means he stands next to him and tries not to get mustard on either of their jackets as he eats. (You’d be surprised at how far Stiles can unintentionally fling a canapé.) Jackson’s handing him a handkerchief when Allison arrives, looking like the cat who got the… wolf.

“So?” Jackson prods, the busiest busybody that ever pretended not to be busy. Or something.

Not that Stiles isn’t curious, but he’s a bit more subtle himself. (Oh, don’t even get him started.)

“He’s so _cute_ ,” Allison gushes. “He said he liked my hair.”

“Ugh,” Stiles says around his mouthful.

“And the others?”

“Oh, right.” Allison shakes herself into business mode. “The younger one is Amelia. Seventeen. Ava is her older sister. They’re just family friends from New York, from the Crawford Pack.” She emphasizes the _friend_ part. “Scott’s single. Yay. And so’s Derek. They plan to stay through the season, since the Hale house is now almost complete, and Scott’s mom has already started work at the hospital.”

Stiles’ heart lurches at the mention of Melissa. He chooses to pretend it’s gas.

“Why would someone in the Hale Pack actually deign to work?” Jackson muses.

“She’s a nurse,” Stiles tells him. “She likes her job.”

Allison’s nodding. “And Scott’s a veterinary student. He loves animals and wants to open his own practice one day. They’re not all high and mighty or anything.”

“Except for their highest and mightiest,” Stiles mumbles. He throws a mini quiche into his mouth and chews it with great vigor.

“I didn’t get to meet Derek,” Allison says, “but I’m sure he’s fine. I mean, Scott seems to like him, so he can’t be all bad.”

Stiles could tell Allison what he thinks of Scott’s judgement, but she’s happy and he doesn’t feel like being more of a Grinch than he already is. Lydia and Danny approach them, arm in arm, and Lydia starts motioning for info before she’s even within earshot, and nope, nope, Stiles can’t.

“Oh, look, Isaac’s at the buffet. I wonder if they have any more quiches?” And he’s off, and no one even notices.

-

They do have more quiches. Is that the right plural? Or is it just quiche? Qooche? Probably not qooche.

“You gotta try this,” he tells Isaac, “it has bacon.” He delivers one straight into Isaac’s mouth and then meets his impressed gaze with a nod. “Right? Right? And I thought I didn’t even like quiche! Turns out I should’ve thought smaller.”

They try a couple of different toppings, but the bacon is by far the best.

“You have to learn how to make this,” Isaac says. “That crust is _amazing_.” He looks like he’s contemplating taking the whole tray with him when he leaves.

“Can’t be too hard.” Stiles could totally make it. Isn’t quiche a sort of pie? The mini ones would be fiddly and maybe not look as pretty as these in the end, but if he could get them to taste half as good? Mm-hmmm.

“I gotta get Allison to try it,” he says, grabbing a couple. “Maybe these will shut her up.”

Before he can move away, Isaac clutches his arm.

“What?” Stiles asks absently.

Isaac shakes his head tightly, and nods to the right.

Derek Hale is standing a couple of feet away from them. And Scott’s with him, talking at him with all the grace of an overeager puppy.

Stiles pulls his arm free; he doesn’t have time for this, but then—he hears Allison’s name and freezes.

“She’s the coolest girl I’ve ever met,” Scott’s saying. “She’s an archer, and a gymnast, and her hair smells like strawberries.”

Judging by the look on Derek’s face, he and Stiles are for once in agreement. Scott talking about Allison is vomit-inducing.

“I wanna go talk to her,” Scott says. “I will. _I will_.” He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet. He visibly works up his courage and then—deflates. “You’d come with me, right?”

“You don’t need me to hold your hand,” Derek says. “You want to talk to a girl? Go talk to the girl.”

“Right!” Scott nods decisively, and then wheedles right back, “but she came with a group of friends. You could run interference? Be my wingman?”

Derek snorts. “Sure, that’s gonna happen.”

“Stiles is with them.” Scott seems to throw it out there as a Hail Mary. He’s starting to look manic. “You know Stiles. You could talk to Stiles while I ask Allison for a dance.”

“Or,” Derek says, “you could go ask her for a dance and I could stay far away from your twitchy little human friend.”

“So what,” Scott says, annoyed, “you’re gonna stand here all night? Why even come to a ball if you’re not going to dance or even talk to people?”

“I am not in the mood,” Derek tells him, his tone low, irritated. “I’m not here to be your wingman. And I’m certainly not here to make nice with the bottom-pile omegas of Beacon Hills. You’ve managed to catch the eye of a pretty girl, great, now go and ask her for a dance, and leave me alone.”

Time slows down, down, and then catches up double-quick, which is why Stiles doesn’t realize that he heard Isaac’s plate hit the floor until after his eyes meet Derek Hale’s.

He stares. Derek Hale stares right back at him.

Stiles gives him a small nod. Derek Hale keeps staring at him.

Stiles tilts his head in question. Derek Hale looks away.

“Stiles.”

Isaac’s tone is timid, and Stiles hates that. Derek Hale is the great ruiner of things, but if there’s one thing Stiles won’t let him ruin, it’s his friends. Not again. He offers Isaac the most brilliant smile he can muster and says, “I think we might be late to our bottom-pile omegas of Beacon Hills meeting.”

Isaac snorts. Stiles feels his heart grow a touch lighter at the sound and grabs onto the feeling, along with Isaac’s arm.

“I guess you’re not marrying Derek Hale,” Isaac says mournfully.

It’s Stiles’ turn to snort.

“I believe, my friend, I can safely promise never to even touch Derek Hale with a ten-foot pole.”


	2. Chapter 2

# 2

> _ “Mr. Darcy is all politeness."  _

There are pancakes in his kitchen when Stiles comes back from his morning walk, and five friendly but definitely uninvited faces around the table. Plus, his dad—who seems to be eating _bacon_.

“Come on, guys. You know he’s not supposed to.” Stiles grabs a strip off his dad’s plate and eats it himself.

“Hey!” his dad protests.

Allison gives him the huge anime eyes. “Come on, it’s Sunday.”

“Ugh.” Stiles takes the last chair and starts loading up his plate. “Save it for Scott.”

Allison blushes. His dad perks up at the mention, looks between Stiles and Allison excitedly. “Really? Scott McCall?”

Allison shrugs shyly. “He’s cool,” she mumbles.

“He asked Allison to dance,” Lydia informs the sheriff. “Twice.” She looks very satisfied with this turn of events. “And he spent the rest of the night watching her.”

“Intently,” Jackson says into his cup of coffee.

“It would’ve been creepy except he looked like he was trying to wag his tail the whole time.” Stiles may have been against any connection between his family and Derek Hale’s pack, but he’s never seen Allison so infatuated before and Scott is—well. Stiles is not going to stand in the way.

Isaac nods, chewing. “That was one happy puppy.”

Allison’s dimples are showing again.

“The whole thing was a dud aside from that,” Jackson declares. “I was hoping for a little more excitement—and no, I do not count Derek Hale dissing Stiles as any kind of excitement.”

Stiles sighs. He can almost feel his dad make the connection with the gang showing up at his place unannounced. They only ever show up like this when they think Stiles needs some TLC. He doesn’t look up, but he just knows his dad’s giving him a searching, loving, could-kill-him-for-you look. “I’ll try and make it more exciting for you next time,” he quips at Jackson. “Maybe throw a drink in his face and storm off?”

“Do I need to pull him over today?” His dad looks completely serious.

Allison and Isaac nod. Lydia seems to be considering it.

Stiles is touched. “You’d use your powers for evil, for me?”

“You know it, kid.” It sounds like a joke, but they all know he absolutely means it.

“Nah,” Stiles tells him. “I actually prefer that he doesn’t like me. Makes the whole nemesis thing less awkward. More official.”

“We’ll get him an engraved plaque,” Isaac suggests. Stiles nods, that’s actually a great idea.

“I was very disappointed in his lack of tact,” Lydia says.

Stiles snorts at her expectation of _tact_ … from _Derek Hale_.

“It didn’t stop you from introducing yourself,” Isaac notes, disapproval written all over his face.

Lydia throws her hair over her shoulder and purses her lips. “I don’t have to like the man to make use of him,” she tells them with the longsuffering tone of a genius among simpletons. “If they do end up settling in Beacon Hills, he’ll be a powerful ally. If they don’t, well—it never hurts to know rich people.”

Stiles sees his father hide a smirk behind a napkin. He does get a kick out of Lydia’s scheming nature. The Stilinski men are simple people. They’re terrible at social politics, can’t lie to save their lives, their feelings are almost always written on their faces.

They’re perfectly cool-headed, calculating, and ruthless in a crisis, as they’ve shown time and again, but absolutely useless in delicate social situations.

No wonder Stiles is giving Lydia so much anxiety. He almost wishes he could get married just to give the woman some peace, finally.

His dad gets up after giving him a one-armed hug and a head kiss, and with no parents at the table the conversion soon turns toward who got hotter in the last year and who fell off the scale.

Matt: Used to be hot, now just creepy. Boyd: Always been hot but very much taken. Erica: Scary and that makes her somehow hotter. Deputy Parrish: Pretty in a sexless kind of way. Heather: How is she still single?

“That kid’s kinda cute, whatshisname,” Danny says, “the redhead?”

“Timothy,” Jackson reminds him.

“Right.” Danny nods. “I’d do him.”

Stiles groans at the train wreck waiting to happen. “Please don’t. He’s way too young.”

“Also, Harris’ cousin,” Isaac points out.

Protests rise from everyone. “Do not do this to us,” Stiles is telling him, while Allison sounds traumatized, “Oh, god, please not Harris.”

“I didn’t say I’ll _marry him_ ,” Danny says. “Geez.”

They trickle out one by one, until Stiles is left to clean up with only Allison for company. Not that he minds. The guys mean well, and Stiles always feels better after spending some time with them, but his head’s already a mess and he needs a bit of quiet to process things.

“You don’t mind, right?” Allison’s voice is low, gentle. She knows him too well.

“What?”

“That I… want to hang out with Scott?”

Oh, her precious, _precious_ heart. “I don’t mind,” Stiles tells her honestly. “I mean, I don’t know if he’s good enough for you, but…”

“You don’t—I mean... is he a good guy? He seems like he has a good heart, but you knew him best.”

Stiles pushes the button to start the dishwasher and leans against the counter. “It’s been a long time.”

Allison’s nodding. “Seven years? Eight?”

“Something like that. And I mean, we were kids, right? We all changed.” He considers what he remembers of Scott and what he observed last night. “He always had a big heart and his mother’s just the best person, seriously. I can’t see her raising a son who doesn’t become a good man.” It’s Derek Hale’s influence that worries him.

A grin spreads across Allison’s face. “I really like him. Like _really_.”

Stiles smirks back. “You don’t say.”

“He has such a good energy. He’s kind, warm, cheerful. Being with him just—makes me all bubbly inside.”

She’s gushing and Stiles doesn’t have the heart to stop her.

“He’s also hot,” he observes. “With that crazy werewolf physique. Which probably helps with the bubbling of your insides.” He gets a punch to the arm for his trouble. “What, I’m just saying!”

“I can’t believe he asked me to dance that second time.”

Absolutely nobody observes tradition anymore, but if they did, a second dance would signal serious intent. Stiles doesn’t doubt Scott’s intent, he saw the guy’s face last night after all, but he wouldn’t trust him to know any kind of tradition to be sending messages with his actions.

“Of course he did, why wouldn’t he? You’re beautiful, you’re talented, you’re surprisingly sweet for someone so deadly. He’s lucky he ever caught your attention.”

She’s blushing but it’s all true anyway. Scott was Stiles’ first best friend. Allison is his second. He knows them both on a fundamental level. He’s the absolute authority on this match, and Allison is by far the catch here.

“I think I’m gonna call him,” she whispers conspiratorially. “You think that’s too forward?”

“I think you should do what feels right.”

She’s already playing with her phone. “Okay. I will, then.” She doesn’t leave as Stiles expected, and instead focuses on him. “You’re not too upset, are you? You never did expect Derek Hale to like you, I know, but it was still terrible of him— “

“I’m not…” Stiles interrupts her, shaking his head, but then trails off and thinks about his answer. He wants to be honest with Allison but it’s not easy to pinpoint what exactly is going on in his storm-cloud of a head today. “I’m annoyed,” he says finally, because that’s the one feeling that’s jumping at him right now. “Not because of anything he says or thinks but because he’s in my territory and it’s really grating on my nerves, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah.” She’s drifted closer as he talked and is now close enough that Stiles is getting the comforting scent of her flowery perfume.

“He was an old annoyance, firmly in the past. Now he’s very much here and doesn’t even have the courtesy of staying silent and invisible—which is really the best thing he can do for humanity but whatever. He’ll make everyone hate him in no time and at least you’ll all be sharing my pain then.”

“Misery loves company,” Allison says, and then her phone chirps and her face splits into a ridiculous grin.

“Scott,” Stiles takes a wild guess.

Allison squeals with glee.

-

Stiles met Allison freshman year of high school, when she walked into his chemistry class looking pretty and overwhelmed, took the seat in front of him, and asked him for a pen. Stiles had plenty; what he didn’t have was the coordination to hand a person something even vaguely sharp without poking them in the eye with it.

Stiles couldn’t stop talking on the way to the nurse’s office, having had little outlet after Scott’s leaving. Allison was a sweetheart, still is, and took all his babbling with grace. He thinks he may have won her over afterwards, when he helped her fix her makeup without hitting on her, but it’s hard to say what really made her notice him when everyone else always just passed him by.

He thought it was inevitable that Allison would find out his reputation as the class spaz and let him loose soon enough, and as expected, he saw Lydia befriend her in between classes, beautiful people flocking together as always.

He’d never had a girl as a close friend anyway, so he was resigned to being her pen-pal (get it?) and not much else.

But then, Allison proved to be a rebel.

She saw him sitting alone in the cafeteria at lunch and joined him, surprising literally everyone, and when Lydia invited her over to the cool kids’ table – an offer no one could refuse, or so Stiles thought – she grabbed Lydia’s hand and pulled her towards Stiles’ table instead.

Stiles may have choked on his sandwich. It’s all a bit hazy now, looking back.

With Lydia came Jackson, and Danny inevitably followed him. To this day, Stiles has no idea how they didn’t just scatter within weeks, why they chose to stick with him for the long haul, but he’s grateful, because all those months without Scott, without Melissa, without anyone but his dad, taught him that as human as he is, Stiles Stilinski is still a pack animal.

The whole thing was an accident when he thinks about it, but what in life isn’t, honestly.

The only one Stiles befriended on purpose was Isaac.

He knew Isaac from the lacrosse team, knew he had lost his mother and brother at some point, but when he also lost his dad in sophomore year everyone took notice. Nobody did anything of course, because, you know, _high school_ , but once Stiles’ dad gave him a nudge towards the kid Stiles’ curiosity was piqued. And when he gets that itch, the only way to scratch it is hacking into his dad’s files.

So that brought him Isaac, who Stiles loves like a little brother (he may be taller than Stiles but he’s still ten months younger) and having him around has been good for pretty much everyone in the group.

Lydia took him under her wing and helped him gain confidence through the power of hair, wardrobe, and a fuck-off attitude—which she’s so good at, seriously. You’d think the tilt of her chin, or the way she flicks her hair are just meaningless mannerisms, but they’re all calculated and mastered to help her manage emotions and reactions, both hers and other people’s. She never had any success with Stiles, his body does what it does, Stiles has very little control over it, but Isaac found some of it useful.

Danny helped him get a couple of part-time jobs, Allison became a good friend, and then a girlfriend, and then went back to being his friend with minimal awkwardness, and Jackson helped the way only he could—by not being an ass to him. (It’s Jackson’s superpower. He’s such a jerk to everyone that when he’s not terrible to someone, it really gives them a confidence boost.)

Stiles doesn’t claim to have solved every problem in Isaac’s life with his meddling, but he does feel that they’re all better off having known each other, having each other’s backs, and he probably can take a tiny bit of credit for whatever magic brought them all together in the first place.

He thinks about that as they sprawl on the grass with drinks in hand, a beautiful blanket Isaac’s nana donated to the cause spread under them. Families they’ve known all their lives are mingling in the park, some setting up food stations, some putting together swings and party games for the children. These are Stiles’ favorites out of all the season’s events, when the families are there, and the atmosphere isn’t so… pushy. This feels more natural and it’s never a chore to spend time with his friends.

They’re three weeks into this year’s circus already and Stiles is tired. He’s danced, he’s socialized, he’s made small talk until he’s all out of small words, he’s seen enough of Beacon Hills’ singles to last him a lifetime… But of course there’s still more to come so he needs to recharge wherever he finds breathing room, and this here is the perfect opportunity.

Lydia and Jackson get up to circulate a bit before lunch, Isaac goes off in search of cotton candy, Danny disappears, probably to break more hearts, and Allison is with Scott. Stiles is perfectly content where he is, lying in the shade of a lovely sycamore tree, eyes closed behind his sunglasses.

He’s almost asleep – so close! – when someone plops down next to him and drops something heavy on his stomach.

“Rise and shine, sleepy head!”

Stiles scrambles up with less grace than a giraffe on a trampoline, sunglasses falling off his face, and grabs at the thing sliding off his stomach—which turns out to be a mixed bag of candy. From Erica Reyes? Why?

“Why?” he repeats out loud, rubbing at his eyes.

Erica offers him a large, toothy grin. “I need an in.”

Stiles sits up properly. “An in for what, crazy person?”

Erica grabs a tootsie roll from the bag and pops it in her mouth. “The Hales.”

“That…” Stiles says, brow furrowed, “explains nothing. I have no in with the Hales.”

Erica stares at him, and stares at him, and— “Really?” she drawls. “So the reason Derek Hale keeps staring at you—“ Stiles looks around in a sudden panic, but nobody’s staring at him. “—at every frickin’ party is… what exactly?”

“He doesn’t stare at me.” He shakes his head too fast and gets dizzy. “No one stares at me. Unless I’m breaking an ice sculpture, but even then, they’re not staring at me, they’re staring at the shattering sculpture. Not that _that_ ever happened. We all know it was Greenberg.”

“Okay,” Erica says. “Let me ask you something else then. Did you ever notice _me_ staring at you in high school?”

Stiles knows his face must be answering the question for him. “You didn’t stare at me. Why would you stare at me?”

Erica flicks his forehead. “You lumbering idiot. I had a crush on you for, like, two years straight.”

Stiles splutters, indignant. “You did not!”

Erica’s nodding with an evil smile. “I so did! And you never even noticed.”

“Wha—you—“ Stiles tries to blink the stupid away from his mind. “Please tell me you didn’t tell Boyd about this?”

Erica lets out a booming laugh. “Of course he knows. He always knew. See, he’s not a clueless jerk like you. He noticed me, he noticed me noticing you. He even noticed you not noticing me back.”

Stiles scoffs. “Yes, yes, all hail Boyd, he’s the king of noticing things. What does any of this have to do with Derek Hale?”

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Erica mumbles. “I don’t know what your damage is, but the guy is hot and rich and you’re not gonna get lucky for a third time. You missed your chance with me—“ She does a little hair flick here to make her point. “—but this one’s still up for grabs. Just, do your freaky mating dance or whatever, and when you’ve got your foot in the door, open a frickin’ window for me.”

“You want Derek Hale?” This conversation is making zero sense to Stiles. “Aren’t you still with Boyd?”

“I _am_ still with Boyd.”

Erica leans forward and gives him a meaningful look. Stiles offers a confused one in return. They stare at each other with a metaphorical clock tick-tick-ticking in Stiles’ head, until he gets it.

“You want the bite? From Derek Hale? Are you crazy?” He’s whispering, this is obviously not a conversation you want someone to overhear, but he does it furiously and with great disapprobation because what. the. fuck.

Erica sits back, gazes around the park. “Are _you_ crazy, dismissing a man who literally has everything?”

“You got that all wrong,” Stiles informs her. “If he’s staring at me, it’s because I offend him somehow. He hates me. And I’m not a fan of him either, so it all works out.”

“He’s not looking at you like he hates you.”

What even— “He’s looking at _everyone_ like he hates them! It’s his default setting! And don’t change the subject, why would you even want the bite?”

She taps her own temple with a long finger. “I want it gone,” she says, matter of fact. “It’s not fun and I’m over it.”

Her epilepsy. Stiles didn’t know she still had seizures, but then again, they don’t see each other too often these days. “You don’t know that it’ll work.”

She smiles. “It worked for McCall. I notice his asthma’s gone.”

Scott’s asthma _is_ gone, Stiles remembers that from when he first turned. He remembers other things as well. Nasty, difficult things that he doesn’t wish on his worst enemy, let alone a kinda-maybe friend. “It wasn’t easy, you know. The bite cures some things, but it brings other problems.”

“I’m not stupid,” she says. And Stiles has to give her that, because yeah, she always was smart. Quick, and witty, and—she had a crush on him, really? “I did my research. And the Hales are respected here. We know them. We know Scott. I don’t want to go to anyone else.”

Well, this is a shit-show, Stiles wants to say, but he won’t, he’s not that much of an ass—not anymore, anyway. “I don’t know what I can do for you.”

“Put in a good word?” Erica suggests. “I tried approaching him but he’s not an easy nut to crack.”

“Nut sounds about right,” Stiles mumbles. “I’m not approaching him, not even for you,” he tells Erica. “Not enough candy in the world.”

“Oh, he’ll make his way to you eventually, I’m sure.”

“He’s not—“

“Trust me on this,” she says. “You know I know better.”

She grabs his chin and smacks an exaggerated kiss on his cheek, leaving behind what feels like most of her lipstick. She draws back a little, but instead of releasing him, jerks his head to the left, and crows into his ear, “Right on time.”

Derek Hale is looking at him.

Dammit.

-

Lunch is burgers, for which his dad shows up like a cartoon cat floating towards the smell of fish. He manages to snag one before Stiles could even notice, but then his second attempt is foiled and replaced with a veggie wrap and side salad. He makes a face but eats it. Stiles has him trained right.

Melissa also shows up and watching her laughing with his dad kind of ruins Stiles’ appetite. He can’t help but get nostalgic for the days when he and Scott tried to Parent Trap them – he knows that’s not the plot, shhh – and they actually thought for a while it would happen. It was the ultimate goal: Scott and Stiles, brothers. But then Peter Hale went crazy, bit Scott, and all their lives went off the rails.

Fucking Hales.

Allison and Lydia have joined the (fucking) Hales on their blanket and Stiles meant to stop by as well, as sort of an olive branch, maybe figure out what exactly Derek Hale means by staring at him like a werewolf in headlights, but suddenly he’s not in the mood anymore. He wanders deeper into the park, where the trees are denser, and moss covers the ground instead of grass. There’s an old blue oak a couple minutes’ walk away that Stiles visits from time to time, and it welcomes him as always, steady, quiet, dependable.

Stiles really likes trees. They listen, and don’t judge. Well, most of them anyway.

He sits cross-legged on the moss-covered ground, closes his eyes, and breathes.

Deaton spent a long time teaching him to breathe, which sounds ridiculous but it’s true. His ADHD has settled down considerably. He can’t be sure how much of that is his brain maturing and how much is meditation, but it certainly felt like it made a difference as he mastered it. His relationships, the way he communicated with people improved drastically. Turns out thinking before acting makes life easier. Who could’ve ever guessed that?

He only opens his eyes when he starts to shiver and notices that the sun’s down. That… took longer than he meant it to and it’s entirely possible that he fell asleep for a bit there. Oh, well. He stretches his arms and legs and walks back briskly to get his circulation going.

The families are gone by now and most of the games have been packed up. There are noticeably more couples snuggling on blankets, which could get nauseating real quick, but enough groups remain in between to make it palatable to Stiles. He finds his friends by a newly set-up buffet table – trust them to always be around food; Stiles heartily approves – discussing the merits of honey glaze vs. soy glaze on wings.

“Wrong and wrong,” Stiles announces. “The best glaze is pineapple-teriyaki.”

Danny makes a face. Isaac looks contemplative. He likes trying new things; Stiles appreciates that about him.

“And where exactly have you been?” Allison asks him. “You missed dessert.”

“Indigestion,” Stiles lies. “You know my stomach.”

Allison smirks at him. “I do know your stomach and its ways.”

She loops her arm through his and drags him towards the cars, to get the extra blankets Danny remembered to bring.

It’s cozy, lounging under soft blankets, Jackson’s head resting on Lydia’s stomach, Allison’s legs crossed with Danny’s, Isaac and Stiles squished together to keep warm. They chat softly as everyone waits for darkness to fall, and at some point, the music starts. Stiles is still cold, but Jackson has an extra cardigan.

“This is why you and I are meant to be,” Stiles tells him, pulling the soft grey cardigan on. “I never remember to bring my hoodie, and you’re the only person in the universe carrying two cardigans.”

“Actually, Lydia’s the one packing cardigans left and right.”

“You’re all children who can’t dress themselves,” Lydia declares.

Stiles pulls the sides of the cardigan around himself. “And yet I’m warm!”

Allison’s onto him. “Evil plan accomplished?”

Stiles waggles his eyebrows.

“Nice, though, isn’t it,” Allison muses after a lull, “to have someone who thinks of you in that way?”

Stiles makes a retching face but out of respect for his best friend, keeps the noises to himself. “I’ve got all of you!” he argues.

“Still.” Allison shrugs, eyes glazed, face dreamy.

“Love at first sight is the worst,” Stiles mumbles to Isaac.

“You make omegas proud,” Isaac assures him, patting his arm. Damn right he does. Let the alphas swoon, Stiles has shit to do.

Speaking of swooning alphas, “Your boy seems to have forgotten his hoodie as well.” Scott and Derek are both in t-shirts, crazy bulging biceps and all, while one of their companions is wearing one of those teeny tiny cardigans that are basically only arms? Stiles doesn’t get women’s clothing. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s, well, _this_.

Allison blushes and ducks her head to hide her smile. “He runs hot.”

“I bet,” Danny smirks at her. She pushes him away and gets up.

“I’ll double check,” she says, hands in back pockets, “just to make sure.”

“She is _so_ gonna do him,” Danny says with approval in his voice. And then asks, “Who had this week?”

Jackson raises his hand, to congratulatory sounds.

“Money does not change hands until confirmation,” Lydia warns them.

Jackson grins and kisses her. “Just admit you lost, baby.”

-

Dancing starts at one point, the air casual but romantic; most people are in jeans, some sundresses, Allison’s even ditched her shoes somewhere and is laughing, swaying in Scott’s arms, looking free and a little bit tipsy. There’s not much decoration, just some string lights and a couple of tables set aside for food and booze, but it’s a clear night with a waning moon and the music is soft; the overall effect is quite pretty.

“How come you’re not dancing, kiddo,” someone familiar says from behind him.

Stiles smiles before turning and catching Melissa’s eyes. “You know, people never ask me that? They just look at me and assume I don’t know how.”

“Oh, I know better,” she says, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him into a hug.

She smells the same. It’s the damnedest thing.

Part of Stiles wants to tell her that all she knows is a thirteen-year-old kid, but—he can’t ignore she also knew his mom, how she loved to dance, how she taught both Scott and Stiles, how his dad used to watch them and laugh…

“I guess you do,” he says instead.

She runs a hand through his buzzcut, just like she used to.

“You wanna give this old lady a whirl?”

They dance for two whole songs, and Stiles enjoys it more than he thought he could. Melissa seems to equal parts approve and despair of Scott and Allison, makes the most hilarious face when asked after Ava and Amelia (then says _they’re great_ with so much fake enthusiasm that Stiles guffaws in her face) and she insists on telling him all about how much Derek Hale has grown in New York, _why_ Stiles has no idea. He changes the subject because hearing his once-surrogate mother being so proud of Derek frickin’ Hale is giving him hives.

“No one special?” she inquires after a while, succinct.

“Nah,” Stiles dismisses it. “I’m too awesome to tie down.”

“I believe you,” she tells him, but stares at him a bit too long to be anything but calculating.

“You should meet Amelia,” she says when the song ends, nudging him towards a corner where Amelia isn’t—but Derek Hale very much is.

(That’s now the motto of the season in Stiles’ head: _Derek Hale is_.)

Melissa grabs herself a bottle of water and says, with great animation, “I am done. Take him off my hands, Derek.” The liar.

Derek Hale tilts his head and raises an eyebrow at Stiles in question. Stiles reflexively takes a step back.

“If you’d like,” Derek offers.

“Oh, no,” Stiles says, “thanks but I’d rather—“ Die. “—not dance right now. Quite done.”

“Come on, Stiles,” Melissa cajoles. “He doesn’t stop brooding in a corner just for anybody, you know.”

“How gracious of him,” Stiles says, as warmly as he can manage, which is just this side of glacial. “But I should be on my way. You tuckered me out. Sooo tired.” He fakes a yawn. Melissa snorts. “I’ll just find my blanket and one of my friends to use as pillow.” He points toward the—completely wrong direction as it turns out, and when he looks around to get his bearings his eyes land on Erica, walking by them. “But you know who just _loves_ to dance?” He grabs Erica’s arm in an iron grip and pulls her in front of him like a shield. “Erica!”

“Hello?” she says, turning it into a question as she eyes Stiles.

“You know Derek,” Stiles says, nudging her at him. “He _really_ wants to dance, but I have a previous engagement, you see. Blanket. Pillow. Friend.”

Derek opens his mouth, but Erica’s there before he can utter a word.

“I would _love to_.” Atta girl.

Stiles beats a hasty retreat, resolutely not looking towards Melissa, that damn meddler, and only hears Erica laughing distantly, “What did you do to Stiles?”

 _He existed_ , Stiles thinks, walking even faster, _that’s what he did_.


	3. Chapter 3

# 3

> _ “I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain.”  _

Stiles wakes up and just knows that it’s one of those days.

His head is heavy. It’s hard to describe the feeling. Like someone’s trying to get his attention through torrential rain. Like the air is honey, the ground is sponge, and it’s gonna be a bitch to move. Like he’s not even in the real world in the first place.

He finds his father in the hallway, coming out of the bathroom, already in his uniform.

“Something’s wrong.”

His dad nods and shows him the text he was reading.

From **Jordan Parrish:**

Fog around the preserve. Can’t get in.

Stiles runs a hand over his hair. That’s new. “Well,” he says, “it’s creepy but at least it makes your job easier.”

Keeping people away from supernatural shenanigans is surprisingly difficult. Having civilians trampling around in the middle of, oh, say, fairies causing mischief in the forest? Is the worst kind of trouble. Fairies alone is enough. There’s really no need to make things more interesting.

“I’ll talk to Deaton,” Stiles volunteers. “Figure out what it is first.”

His dad pats him on the back. “Keep me in the loop.”

“You know it.”

Stiles stands under hot water in the shower for ten minutes straight, hands braced on the tiled wall. The instinct is to try and wash the feeling off, but of course it doesn’t work that way. All it does is make Stiles want to get back in his pajamas and snuggle into his bed, but unfortunately evil waits for no man. Or woman.

He calls Allison to tell her to clear her schedule for a hunt. He’s not going anywhere without her watching his back. She bitches at him about having to find someone to cover her shift at the last minute, but of course she’ll be there. She wouldn’t let him go alone if he begged to. Then he calls Deaton and finds out just about what he expected.

He’s not sure what it is, but he thinks the ghouls might be back.

 _Of course_ they are. Why wouldn’t they be.

“Don’t rush in, you hear me?” Deaton tells him. “Focus. Listen. Gather information. Do not walk into the fog blind.”

When did Stiles ever rush into anything, seriously?

And there’s no call for hanging up on him either.

He calls Lydia, asks her to pick Allison up and meet him at the regular place.

“Just in case it’s ghouls,” he tells her. “If it’s anything else, Allison and I can handle it.”

He gets to their meeting point early and examines the fog. It covers everything from the ground up to the very tips of the trees, and it’s dense, completely opaque. When he tries to step through, he encounters no resistance.

He steps right back out, because see, not rushing in.

Instead, he kneels just outside the tree line, puts both hands on the ground and digs in with his fingers. He closes his eyes, reaching out, imagines slogging through the mist, running in the woods, searching.

And it finds him, as it always does.

-

The way Stiles “met” the Nemeton was anticlimactic.

After the whole Peter Hale fiasco, once Derek Hale left and the dust settled, Stiles thought he may be out of a best friend but at least he was done with the supernatural for the rest of his life.

What a naïve little boy he was.

It wasn’t even six months before the next crisis came, in the shape of a dark druid who sacrificed a bunch of students and kidnapped Stiles’ dad in a move that’ll go down in history under Biggest Mistakes.

Stiles helped Deaton bring her down, kicking, screaming, and bleeding, and found out a couple of things about himself along the way.

Like: Threaten his dad and he will have no qualms about bashing your head in with a baseball bat. Not one regret, during or after.

And: Sometimes, trees talk to him.

The darach had succeeded in waking the Nemeton, and it was confused, angry, sending out pulses of pure energy in, like, the worst hangover headache Stiles had ever experienced, even secondhand.

Deaton was panicking, and watching that man panic was a whole new level of scary for Stiles. He kept looking for a way to shut it down, contain it, smother it, and Stiles thought… _that’s not very nice, is it._

He didn’t know shit, obviously, but he knew that he felt it; it was alive, it was confused, and it was trying to communicate. If there was one thing Stiles understood on a fundamental level, it was a need to communicate.

So, he went to the Nemeton.

Deaton warned him to stay away of course, but Stiles figured an all-powerful tree god or whatever it was, that could broadcast directly into his head could find him anywhere and do whatever. At least this way he could respond. Maybe.

Trying to connect felt stupid at first. He circled it until he felt dizzy, tried putting his hands on it, and finally, tired, he just sat on it and closing his eyes, let himself fall back. And there it was, poking right back at his consciousness. Surprisingly simple.

What he got from the tree were concepts, impressions, feelings. There were never any actual words. He had to learn to translate what it was shoving into his head, make sense of the order, put the separate thoughts into groups and read them together. It was an alien puzzle, and Stiles loved figuring it out.

The Nemeton was powerful, he realized that night, but it wasn’t all-knowing. Thankfully, Stiles was great at explaining.

Deaton found him by the stump, hours later. He seemed to know what was happening, which was good, because Stiles had no idea how to describe what he was doing and why. Deaton didn’t seem to disapprove exactly, but he had his worried face on.

“Are you alright, Stiles?”

Stiles smiled at him. “Did you know that the Nemeton is, like, super bored?”

-

“Are you done being one with the forest?”

Lydia hands him a to-go cup of coffee. Stiles inhales it in huge gulps.

“It _is_ ghouls,” he confirms.

Allison swears, walks right back to the car and brings out a huge-ass sword. “What’s with the fog?” she asks him. “Ghouls didn’t come with a fog last time.”

“Or the time before that,” Lydia interjects. They’re all really sick of the goddamn ghouls.

“The Nemeton pulled down the fog,” Stiles informs them. “It knows we don’t want people getting into the forest when there’s danger. It’s getting creative.”

“Aww, you sound like a proud mama,” Allison coos, rubbing his head.

“Yup,” he says. “Me and my thousand-year-old baby. We’re a modern family.”

With Allison geared up they walk into the fog through their usual pathway—and isn’t it incredibly telling that they have a usual way to enter a forest to hunt supernatural pests? They even have a usual formation: Stiles leading the way, Allison watching their back, Lydia sandwiched in between them.

They discover that the fog is only around the perimeter and doesn’t go all the way through, which is nice because walking around literally blind would’ve been a bit too much fun to handle right now. They know where the ghouls originate, this being the fourth time they’re dealing with this; it’s an ancient burial ground that no one even knew about until the Nemeton nudged Stiles towards it one memorable night. Now they walk to it with purpose, not a whisper between them, all of them focused and on edge.

The thing about ghouls is that they’re undead, so killing them is kind of impossible. Deaton thinks there’s probably a way – some way to disperse them, as he put it – but so far, they’ve only managed to send them packing and wait until they regroup (as in regrow whatever pieces they’ve lost in the fight) and come back.

And they do come back… with friends.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Mountain ash doesn’t slow them down at all. They come from the ground and disappear back into it when they leave. The only way to stop them is to basically just hack them into pieces. Thankfully, Allison’s good with a sword, and Stiles can swing a bat with the best of them. And Lydia, well. Lydia has her own unique way of helping.

Once, while drunk, Stiles called her the Queen of the Dead, which she vetoed immediately with a firm, “No.” A forbidding finger was shoved in Stiles’ face. “Not happening.”

That wouldn’t put Stiles off a cool name like that, but the way she shakes after a scream, how pale she gets, _that_ put him off from using it where she can hear him. She is the queen though, make no mistake. Anything remotely death related, Lydia will find a way to make it her bitch. She’s often complained about how useless it was that she doesn’t even get to save anyone, just screech like a fire alarm after the fact, but it’s not that simple; her instinct, if not the scream itself, has saved them many times by now.

The Nemeton is great at directions but Stiles is not particularly good at following them, so it’s helpful when Lydia gets the heebie-jeebie feeling of the undead nearby, and they’ve found that her scream actually incapacitates the ghouls for quite a while. They don’t like to use it until they really need it, because they also discovered that once they shake off the effects of the scream they’re doubly pissed and fighting to show it. So, it’s not an assault weapon so much as a fallback plan.

“Stop,” Lydia whispers, looking around frantically. “Something’s coming.”

And just like that, they’re in the thick of it.

-

The first time the ghouls came, they made their filthy, crawling way to the Nemeton before Stiles and Deaton figured out what was happening. The ghouls didn’t get to kill anyone because thankfully they first wanted to stop by the tree and pay their respects or whatever it was they were doing, and the Nemeton gave them up immediately. The second time, they brought along two more friends. The third time, another one joined their party.

Stiles doesn’t want to say they’re headed for a ghoul apocalypse, but it’s certainly not looking good.

One of them pops out of the ground near Lydia, tries to grab her shoe; Allison is there to stick a sword in its head immediately. Another two come at Stiles from both sides, stumbling and covered in thick mud. He whacks one after the other.

The three of them stick together, making sure to keep Lydia in the middle and striking the creatures down on the way—four, five, Stiles loses count. When they get to the clearing the party seems to be on; five ghouls pushing towards them relentlessly while halves of others grabbing at their ankles, cut off limbs disappearing into the ground, turning into a sickly grey mud.

They stink, too. They’re officially Stiles’ least favorite supernatural creatures in the world.

Stiles takes a tumble but quickly gets back on his feet. He doesn’t even want to know what would happen if one of them – or even one of those hacked off hands creeping on their own – grabbed him and pulled him into the mud. It’s among the things he resolutely doesn’t think about; he has enough nightmares already, thank you very much.

He catches sight of Allison giving Lydia a boost up a low tree branch and silently applauds her good thinking. Keeping Lydia out of harm’s way is both logical and helpful to him on an emotional level.

Lydia may talk tough, but she’s not the best at physical altercations. And seeing her hurt is akin to watching a kitten bleed. Absolutely nobody in the world wants to see that happen. Nobody.

Plus, she whines a lot.

“I think that’s it,” Stiles says, stomping on a moving arm until it turns to dust and gets all over his shoelaces. “How many was that?”

“I counted eight,” Allison tells him, panting.

“Nine!” Lydia yells from her perch in the tree. “And more coming!”

The ground in front of Stiles shakes, cracks, and collapses, as four more ghouls shoot out with more speed than you’d expect from such lumbering creatures.

Stiles jumps back, but his clothes are caught.

“Stiles!”

Allison moves in, pulling her knives from ankle holsters.

Stiles stumbles, falls backwards, ghouls fall on top of him, Allison jumps on top of the ghouls.

Lydia screams.

-

They make it out of the woods with two ghoul bites, one sprained ankle, and about a cubic ton of mud and dust between the three of them, and since the universe hates Stiles, they emerge a stone’s throw away from the newly renovated Hale house and far, far away from their cars.

Scott answers the door and drops the drink in his hand in his hurry to get to Allison.

“What—What happened—”

“Please tell me Melissa’s home,” Stiles pleads.

“Yeah,” Scott says, supporting Allison’s weight. “Yeah, come in, come in.”

-

Stiles kinda wishes he could hate the house, but they’re shown into a bright and airy kitchen with moss green cupboards, a large marble island, picture windows on one side, and a breakfast nook the likes of which Stiles has never seen on the other.

“Oh, god, don’t, please,” Allison’s saying, and Stiles turns towards the sound to find her in Scott’s arms, bridal style, resisting being put down on a large armchair. “I’m covered in mud. At least put some towels on it first.”

Scott points Lydia towards a drawer and they pull out a tablecloth to make use of.

Melissa’s there, _thank god_ Melissa’s there. Stiles is _so_ tired, hurting everywhere, a ghoul bite burning in his side, another at his ankle, and he’s so incredibly aware of being in enemy territory that it’s giving him a weird kind of exhausted high. He could so easily pass out right now and probably wake up screaming in a couple hours. It’s not a fun place to be, and Melissa’s friendly face is helping to calm him down a little.

He grabs one of the towels the disgruntled Crawfords brought for clean-up and presses it against his side. _Son of a bitch._ That thing had some teeth. The bite burns like hellfire.

Melissa gently touches his arm. “Stiles, are you alright?”

He has no idea. “Allison?”

“It’s a bad sprain. We’ll need to keep her off her feet for a few days, but it’ll be fine. Do you need help with that?”

Stiles shakes his head no. He knows he needs to wrap up the wounds, but even more urgently than that, he needs to go out to breathe for a bit. Too many people are in this room; he feels like he’s choking on the stale air. He needs to call his dad from somewhere quiet, call Deaton, ask him whether ghoul bites turn people into ghouls maybe? Ugh, and ignore that he’s in the Hale house. Why is he in the Hale house?

He follows the mud trail back to the door, finds a porch with fancy furniture that he didn’t even notice coming in, all but slides down the two steps out front and pads toward the only bit of green left from the construction, to the right side of the house. There’s a stream going by the property, small and calm, but enough to wade in if he felt like it; if he could trust his legs to keep him up, he would walk in right now and do away with this smell. As it is, he can barely manage a controlled fall onto the ground.

He has no idea how long he sits there. He knows he texted his dad and called Deaton – who told him in no uncertain terms that he’s not on his way to becoming a ghoul himself – but other than that, it’s a blur of too fast breathing and adrenaline crash. The thing he registers next is Lydia’s hand on his shoulder and Jackson’s car idling nearby.

“Oh, good. Are we leaving?”

Lydia pulls him up and steers him towards the porch steps. “Allison’s staying,” she says, and before Stiles can object, raises a hand to pretty much object to his objection. “Her dad’s out of town and she can’t walk.”

“And she wants to stay with Scott,” Stiles completes the thought.

Lydia half-nods. “He was very insistent. It was sweet. It’s been a hard day. Let her have this.”

“Fine,” Stiles says. “It’s her funeral. Just give me a ride home; I’m gonna crash.”

And Lydia’s face does a complicated dance that Stiles is not liking one bit. “Here’s the thing…”

“Oh, god, what’s the thing?”

“She needs a chaperone…”

“No,” Stiles tells her. “I am _not_ staying here; you’d have to break both my legs.”

“She got hurt saving your life. But if you don’t care about what people will say…” She shrugs. “I told them you’d stay but it’s your call, I guess.”

Stiles huffs, hands on hips. “You can’t just pick and choose with traditions, you know. They’d need a chaperone _if_ they were officially courting. They’re not officially courting. I didn’t see families meeting. Did you see families meeting? And you know those rules were all made up for omegas. Alphas do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want. So, she can stay, whatever. They’re not even alone. I’m going home.”

Lydia stares at him. Stiles looks away.

“She never cared about people talking,” he grumbles.

“Her family would care, and you know it.”

Lydia stares. Stiles throws his hands up.

“Oh, fuck you. Just leave then.”

Lydia gives him a hug and a wicked smile before leaving. Stiles really hates her sometimes.

-

When he walks back into the house, Derek Hale is already there.

Because of course he is.

Stiles cannot deal with him right now.

“Shower?” he asks, looking around the room for any takers. Somebody’s going to remember how to be a host any minute, he’s sure.

And sure enough, Melissa does.

“Come on, kid,” she says and leads him upstairs.

-

The new Hale house isn’t as grand as Stiles pictured. It seems to be eight or nine bedrooms, which is a palace compared to Stiles’ home but pretty humble for an old-school pack house. They set him and Allison up in two separate rooms with their own bathrooms. The décor is sparse, but the bed looks heavenly, made up with fresh white linens; it’s beckoning Stiles so strongly that he doesn’t even care where he is anymore.

He takes a lukewarm shower, makes use of the bandages Melissa thoughtfully left in the room for him, wears the clothes he’s given – decidedly not thinking about who they might belong to – and sleeps as soon as his head hits the pillow.

It’s barely after noon, but it’s the ghoul apocalypse with a side of Hale-tastrophe. He thinks he can be excused.

He dreams about the Nemeton, about what it must’ve been like _before_ , an oak so huge it’s impossible to take in in its entirety, with branches thick as trees reaching up into the sky, some coming down to rest almost on the ground. Stiles sees himself extend a hand and touch the bark, prickly under his fingers but warm; a living, breathing thing. He sees himself walk, weave through the low hanging branches, stretching up to feel the leaves dancing in the wind. He sees himself sit down against the base, familiar curve of its roots cradling his body. He leans his head back, and he breathes. The trunk of the tree expands with every breath he takes.

He wakes up calm. Peaceful. And _hungry_.

He stops by Allison’s room and finds her asleep, like any sane person would be at half past nothing at night. The house smells faintly and comfortably like food, so he follows the scent downstairs, to where he remembers that gorgeous kitchen to be. He fumbles for the light switch; it would be just like him to survive ghouls and then brain himself on the Hale Pack’s marble counters.

There’s enough moonlight coming through the large windows to see the faint outlines of the furniture and he spots movement a second before his hand finds the switch, heart leaping into his throat on instinct.

“It’s me,” Derek Hale says. “Sorry.”

“Shit!” Stiles feels like reprimanding the man for sitting in the dark but it’s his own kitchen, so maybe that’s not entirely fair. “Scared me.”

“Sorry,” Derek says again. He sits back down at the table (Did he seriously get up because an omega entered the room? Stiles never took him for a traditionalist.) and opens his book—wait, was he reading a book? In the moonlight?

Show-off werewolves.

“No, I just… didn’t expect anyone to be awake.” Sitting in the dark like a creep. _Reading_.

Stiles starts toward the fridge, feeling awkward because—should he ask for permission? He should definitely be thanking the man for letting them stay, which was so completely unnecessary when everyone they know lives in, like, a twenty-minute radius. God save him from love-sick alphas and meddling Lydias, seriously. This is the most ridiculous thing Stiles has ever had to do in his life, he doesn’t care what obscure tradition Lydia blames it on.

“Melissa put a plate in the oven for you.”

Derek Hale’s voice in the dead of night is surprisingly soft and he’s been unnaturally welcoming, but hearing Melissa’s name from him is never not going to be instantly enraging for Stiles. Oh, _Melissa_. You mean the Melissa who used to be my family until you took her away and now she’s a part of your family? _That_ Melissa?

He doesn’t say any of that but only because Lydia would kill him for being rude if he did, and Allison would pout. He gives him a barely-there nod instead and opens the gleaming oven door to get the plate.

“The microwave is…”

“It’s okay,” Stiles says. He’s not heating it up. He’s going to shove some in his face and retreat as soon as possible. “It’s fine.”

Derek Hale is staring at him, and Stiles is just standing there, with a plate in his hand, dreading sitting at the table across from him. The island will do, right? That’s not too weird. He’s not heating it up and not sitting down, just eating super quick… with his hands, because he doesn’t have a fork.

His plans are thwarted by a disgruntled Derek Hale commandeering his plate and sticking it in the microwave himself. He’s shooed towards the table and given a glass of water, as well as silverware. The man is a menace, clearly, and Stiles is all kinds of offended… until the food is in front of him, and then he remembers Melissa’s cooking and loses the thread of his thoughts.

“Melissa’s meatloaf,” he mumbles into his plate, with a small smile. He has fond memories of this thing.

“She said it was your favorite.”

Well, touché. Derek Hale wins by deploying nostalgic cooking. Stiles can’t even be mad anymore.

He’s inhaling the food when Derek feels the need to talk again. “Your wounds are still bleeding.”

“They’re not _bleeding_.” Maybe oozing. “And you shouldn’t scent people without their consent, it’s creepy.”

“Allison said it was ghouls?”

Stiles nods. The potatoes are really good, or he wouldn’t stay for this interrogation. Not that the ghoul thing is a secret or anything, but he’s not into sharing with the Hale Pack at the best of times, and getting your ass handed to you by a bunch of undead creatures is decidedly not the best of anything.

“She said it wasn’t the first time?”

“We have a bit of an infestation,” Stiles confirms. “It’s under control though.”

Stiles sees him resettle where he sits which is only noticeable because he’s normally so stiff. “So, you work with the sheriff’s department?”

Beacon Hills is not large enough a town to be able to fund a separate department for their supernatural cases, and if they didn’t have their own local resources, they’d have to ask for federal assistance, which would delay the process considerably. Stiles is literally doing a public service. And it pays the bills. Not a lot of them, but still.

“I consult.”

“Isn’t it unusual to send three humans? We could’ve helped.”

Stiles snorts. Where to start. “We’ve been doing fine.”

“Pack territories are mainly defended by—”

“Oh, you wanna defend your territory? Right.” And that’s it for the food. Stiles puts his fork down. “And we’re supposed to do what? Sit on our hands and wait for saviors?”

“I’m only offering help, and you’re taking it the wrong way as you always do.”

“Maybe.” Stiles is feeling tired again. “Or maybe, you could try spending twenty minutes in town before assuming you know better than the people who bled and sacrificed to protect it. Just an idea.”

He gets up, scrapes his half-eaten food into the garbage disposal, and leaves the room.

Derek Hale, thankfully, doesn’t try to stop him.

-

Stiles all but begs Allison to leave the next morning, but Allison begs right back saying her father’s driving down with her grandfather the next day, that she’s having the best time, that nobody she could stay with would carry her up and down the stairs like Scott does, _have you seen his arms, a werewolf’s strength really is something, you know_ —

Ugh, for god’s sake.

The Crawford girls make a show of dusting off chairs before breakfast, talking about how much mud there was, _my god, never seen someone in such a state, covered in so much filth_ , while Stiles wears a tight smile and tells them he’s seen worse actually.

He’s _been_ worse.

“One time, there was a witch trying to tap into the Nemeton’s power to perform necromancy, and let me tell you, you do not wanna know what goes into a necromancer’s cauldron.”

Allison laugh-snorts tea out of her nose. “He fell into the cauldron,” she explains to Scott.

“No way.”

Stiles resents that. “That’s a complete misrepresentation of what happened. I stepped on a frog and—”

Now Melissa’s on his case, “You stepped on a _frog_?”

He huffs. Why even try to explain. “I stopped her, didn’t I?”

Derek Hale joins the conversation from a completely different tangent. “The Nemeton’s awake.”

Stiles thinks that might be a question in Derek Hale-land. Not that he’s going to answer. People need to deserve his cooperation and Derek Hale is unworthy.

“Like I said,” he mumbles under his breath, “twenty minutes.”

The conversation moves away from Stiles’ filthy adventures, and onto a much more interesting subject, namely the lack of shopping opportunities in Beacon Hills. Amelia and Ava talk about proper attire for official functions and where to get the best formal dresses in New York, and, well, Stiles kind of tunes them out after the first couple of seconds.

He tunes back in when he hears something about books.

“You’re always reading,” Ava is teasing Derek, who settled into one of the plush armchairs in the kitchen as everyone else eats. He’s reading an old tome that actually looks kind of intriguing.

“Is that a bestiary,” Stiles wonders out loud.

“I thought I’d read up on ghouls, but there’s not a lot here.” He shuts the book and leans over to hand it to Scott who passes it on to Stiles. “There’s more in the library. It might take a while to go through all of them.”

Stiles wipes his hands on a napkin before handling the obviously very old book. It’s beautiful.

“Did you have all your books shipped here already? Derek has a _ton_ of books.” Ava says. She seems to hate being excluded from any conversation. Stiles enjoys talking as much as the next three people, but he hopes he’s never been this boring and redundant about it. Or this transparently desperate for attention for that matter. “He has such a _stunning_ collection of the _rarest_ books. I’ve always wanted to borrow some, but you know, with so much going on I never seem to have any time to sit and read.”

Amelia nods mournfully.

Scott is saying something about reading being important, nice and vague, just as Stiles would expect from the boy who couldn’t finish one book in three months for school, but that’s not important. What’s important is— “You have a library?”

“Nothing gets by you,” Derek snarks at him.

Stiles stuffs a piece of toast into his mouth and points up in question. “Upstairs?”

“I’ll take you,” Scott says unexpectedly, standing up and waiting for him to scoot out of the booth as inelegantly as humanly possible.

Stiles is so focused on the idea of rare books and bestiaries that he doesn’t even question why Scott would voluntarily leave Allison’s side.

That’s his first mistake.

His second is not sending him packing once they’re in the room.

In his defense, the library is basically something out of his wet dreams, with rich mahogany shelves, huge wingback chairs, multiple reading nooks, and walls and walls of old books, it’s only natural that he’d be a bit distracted.

“You don’t seem to like Derek very much,” Scott ventures, standing two steps behind Stiles and running his fingers down the spines of random books.

Stiles lets out an involuntary, derisive sound. “What gave me away.”

He moves further into the stacks; Scott follows.

“He’s a good guy, you know.”

What is it with people talking up Derek Hale at him? “Does he need my approval for something?”

Scott is giving him an unexpectedly fond look. “I always knew you’d grow up to be a prickly son of a bitch.”

“We all knew _that_.” They share a grin. Their first since they were fourteen. Stiles sobers up faster than he’d have liked to. “What exactly do you want from me?”

Scott has the gall to look hurt. “I missed you.”

“Well, Scott,” Stiles drawls, turning back to keep browsing the books, “there’s this nifty invention called the telephone. You might’ve picked one up in the last eight years and called. My number hasn’t changed.”

“I know.” Scott pulls off the kicked puppy look remarkably well. Stiles almost wants to forgive him. “Derek thought—”

“Oh, here we go…”

“No, it was my fault,” he explains. “I was in denial, I was resisting, acting like I could walk away from being a werewolf, and Derek just wanted me to learn about the culture, about all these instincts I all of a sudden had, kinda immerse myself in a pack and see where it was taking me. It was the right idea. Looking back, I—I’m glad he intervened.”

And all Stiles wanted were books. “Well, that worked out for you guys then. I’m happy for you.”

“After… I should’ve called, but it’d been so long…”

Stiles puts back one of the books in his hand with a bit more force than warranted. “It’s alright, Scott. We all had our own shit going on.” Stiles’ shit has been particularly shitty in places but it’s his, and he’ll take it. He likes where he ended up, adventures and interrogations in the Hale house notwithstanding.

Scott scuffs his foot on the carpet. “I just wish we could be friends again.”

Stiles is not buying any of this. Except for the book, he would totally buy this book if it was for sale. _Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, and Werewolves in America_ looks like something that’d be right up his alley. “You don’t need to be my best friend to court Allison.”

“But it would help?” Scott offers, staring at the tower of books in Stiles’ arms with alarm.

Stiles puts them carefully down on the window seat and resists turning back to get a second batch. “I don’t think you guys need any help at this point,” he tells Scott honestly. “You just need the space to figure yourselves out.”

Scott seems satisfied with that, and Stiles figures, as always, people want his attention not because they want _his_ attention but the attention of one of his unfairly pretty friends instead.

He’s used to it, but it still pisses him off, frankly.

“But Scott?”

“Yeah?”

“If you hurt her, for any reason—”

Scott raises his hands in surrender. “I know. You’ll hurt me back.”

Stiles laughs at his naivete. “The woman carries a sword, Scott.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Scott asks, eyes wide.

Stiles turns back to his books. “Get used to it if you’re gonna date her. She has a whole damn armory.”

-

Stiles spends the day in the library, on his own, reading.

It’s bliss.

He follows Derek’s lead ( _ugh_ ) and looks through the bestiaries first, looking up ghouls and other undead creatures. He doesn’t expect to be allowed to actually borrow any of them, so he takes pictures of the relevant parts with his phone, to go through more thoroughly later. He’ll need Lydia’s help on them for sure, and maybe even have Deaton take a look. He finds a ton of really interesting books on werewolf culture and magic, but before he can even get to them, he tumbles headfirst into _Whispers from the Woods: The Lore of Sacred Trees_ and that’s that for his day.

Unfortunately, he can only survive on books for so long, and has to venture out when his stomach stops growling and starts to outright scream. He walks down the stairs turning over what he read in his head, and only really comes out of his bubble when he hears someone mention his name in the den.

He has no intention of walking into the wolf’s den, but somehow, he can’t make his feet move towards the kitchen either. He stops, and listens.

“They’re basically running wild, aren’t they,” he hears Ava say. She has this showy voice she only uses when preaching, most often over something Stiles-related. “I mean, small-town manners and all that, but I’d expect the sheriff’s family to be better behaved, honestly.”

Amelia makes assenting noises.

“And Allison’s a _sweet_ girl—" Wow, the condescension is off the charts. Stiles wonders who she thinks she’s kidding with that tone. “—but when Scott said she was an alpha I imagined her with a bit more gravitas, I must say. I certainly never pictured her running into the woods after an omega and swinging swords at random pests because _he_ said so.” She pauses. Stiles can only guess that everyone in the room is nodding in agreement. “It’s… _interesting_. But I suppose that’s how they do things here.”

Amelia chimes in, “And in the middle of the season, as well. You’d expect some decorum from people supposedly presenting themselves to the community as suitable partners.”

What century are these people living in? Stiles honestly didn’t know anyone still used the word _decorum_. Or talked about _presenting themselves,_ for that matter. Deaton did mention that some packs were very into tradition, but Stiles never imagined _this_ , not from people in his generation at least.

Ava and Amelia are snickering.

“Maybe it’s their way of exhibiting.”

“I guess we all display what we have to offer.”

Derek’s voice interrupts their little fun. “You’ve grown up in a traditionalist pack,” he tells them. He doesn’t sound particularly disapproving but then again, Stiles wouldn’t expect him to come to his or Allison’s defense. Scott would’ve maybe—not that Stiles wants or needs any of their support. The whole conversation is insane. “You should keep in mind that not everyone observes the old traditions the way you do.”

Ava manages to out-snoot herself. “Modern, is it.”

“Perhaps. In our pack, my mother didn’t set any strict, traditional roles. She taught us the value of being useful and to contribute in whatever way we could. Pulling your weight in the pack was more important than beauty or poise. I understand your mother does things differently, but I’m personally not used to standing on ceremony.”

“Don’t tell me you had humans running around after ghouls back in the day!”

“Well, no. Anything dangerous would’ve been a job for a werewolf—”

“Now, see, it’s not the same—”

Stiles doesn’t have the patience to listen to any more of their bullshit, so he cuts a sharp right and goes towards the kitchen where he can hear someone, hopefully Melissa, cooking.

It doesn’t occur to him until much later that those were three _werewolves_ talking in that room, and they probably knew that he was standing out there the whole time.

He has no idea what to make of that, so he resolves to not think on it at all.

-

“Stiles made the dessert,” Melissa announces as she serves the cobbler after dinner.

Allison and Scott make excited noises, while Ava and Amelia just make faces.

Stiles takes a bite. It’s not bad. He used the last of the apples, peaches, and berries they had in the fridge so it’s a bit mix and match, but overall, it could’ve been worse. Allison gives him a thumbs up with her mouth full, and Melissa smiles fondly from across the table.

“I wish _I_ knew how to bake,” Scott says mournfully.

“He burns water,” Melissa explains.

“I do notice you’re the only one cooking,” Stiles prompts her. He doesn’t give a shit what anyone at the table thinks of his rudeness at this point. He does find it unfair that she’s cooking for all these people while also working four days a week.

“Well,” Melissa says, “I don’t want them to starve. Derek knows about three dishes to make and one of them is toast.”

There are snorts and chuckles around the table. Derek smiles.

“And the girls are more used to employing a cook than cooking themselves.”

Amelia squirms a little, uncomfortable, but Ava seems to delight in that fact.

“You obviously know your way around the kitchen,” Melissa points an accusing forkful of cobbler at him. “I remember your mom making a mean cobbler as well. Are you using her recipe?”

“Oh _yeah_ ,” Scott’s saying with a soft smile. “I remember her cobbler.”

Stiles shakes his head. “She didn’t write down her recipes as far as I know. There wasn’t a book or anything.” Melissa offers him a warm, if slightly pitying look. “I do have a freaky memory for food though, so I worked backwards to recreate my favorites. The cobbler is one. Her beef stew, roast chicken, three-cheese pasta bake…”

“You’re making me hungry again,” Scott interrupts, half-serious.

“I couldn’t get them all right, of course. Like, I don’t know what she was doing with her banana bread but mine never tastes the same. And some are super easy, like her inexplicably lumpy mashed potatoes…”

Melissa laughs.

“That’s how I make it now,” Stiles tells her. “It’s comforting.”

“Kinda like mom’s dry turkey,” Scott mock-whispers.

“Hey!” Melissa slaps the back of his head.

“It’s comforting, mom. We love it.”

-

Scott and Derek help with breakfast the next day, proving that they can, in fact, take a hint. Derek even clears the table while Scott and Melissa help Allison gather her things and wrap her ankle before her father comes to pick them up.

Escape is closer than ever. Stiles is humming to himself as he loads the dishwasher, thinking he’s survived this after all. From now on, he’ll only ever see the Hales across a ballroom or a banquet table, and he’s going to be able to turn tail and go home when they start to get annoying.

What a joy it is, he muses, to have the freedom to go home when tired, when annoyed, when Derek Hale wants to talk—what, _again_?

He’s waiting politely to be acknowledged and sees something in Stiles’ dread-filled eyes that gives him encouragement for some reason.

“I’m going to talk to the sheriff when he has time and offer to help if anything comes up.”

Stiles heaves a sigh and shuts the dishwasher’s door a little too firmly.

“I’m sure it offends you somehow—”

Stiles shakes his head. His jaw is actually hurting from how tense he is.

“I’m only offering help.” Derek’s face grows tight in response.

Well, good, Stiles thinks. It’s not fun when he’s the only one getting mad. “You’re _offering help_ , which is your subtle way of saying you want to take over—”

Derek tries to interrupt, Stiles talks on.

“—which is your not-so-subtle way of implying that I’m incompetent—”

“That is _not_ —”

“—which actually almost makes me want to _let you_ , just to see how long it takes for you to come crawling to ask for my help, but the thing is, I don’t really care what you think of me; what I do care about is this town, these people, _my family_ , and I won’t put them in danger to stroke your ego or teach you a lesson.”

The minute he’s done, Stiles wishes he could turn back time and just smile and nod, but there’s something about Derek Hale that not only puts him on edge but pushes him right off it. He can’t keep the irritation contained. Now Derek is staring at him with eyes that are threatening to flash red and it’s not even satisfying.

He just wants to go home.

“I said help, I meant help,” Derek rasps, voice low and tightly controlled. “We’re already here. Just a phone call away.”

“You tell the sheriff that,” Stiles says, moderating his tone carefully to avoid another flare. “You’re here, and I’m already in his home. You showed up two seconds ago and I’ve been here, in the middle of all this, all my life.”

“And you can’t imagine that maybe I can do something you wouldn’t be able to?”

Derek crosses his arms over his chest, and his shoulders and biceps flex under his shirt. Stiles takes a deliberately long look and shrugs his relatively skinnier upper body in response.

“You never even wondered what _I_ can do that you can’t.”

Werewolf packs are breeding grounds for greedy, self-centered, arrogant alphas who think they know what’s best for everyone when their position and power in life are merely an accident of birth, and, in Derek Hale’s case, of death.

Stiles has no advantages whatsoever through birthrights. He had to claw his way to a consultant’s job at the station, and he only holds it because Deaton is behind him a hundred percent, and because his father shuts down anyone who questions his worth, and oh yeah, because he does what he does better than anyone else could have.

Derek Hale looks at him and sees a frail human, a weak omega, a poor middle-class kid who can’t possibly have anything to compare to a mighty werewolf. Well, fine. He can go ahead and try reasoning with the Nemeton using his damn claws. Stiles is certainly not going to try and talk him out of that. He’d actually pay to see it.

But he’s also not going to listen to his bullshit and pretend it’s gold.

“It’s impossible to talk to you,” Derek Hale tells him.

The doorbell rings. Stiles smiles.

“And now you never have to, again.”

-

Melissa answers the door and greets Allison’s father.

“Chris.”

“Melissa, hey. Is Allison ready?”

Stiles watches Allison hobble to her father with Scott’s help, and grabs their bags. The Crawford ladies are off somewhere being self-important, and he doesn’t think Derek’s going to be waving them off anytime soon. He says goodbye to Melissa and Scott, thanks Melissa for her hospitality, and then all but runs to the car.

“Oh, my sword!” Allison yelps. “Stiles, could you grab it for me, I left it on the porch.”

And that, of course, is where Derek Hale is. Looking unnaturally pale.

He hands Stiles the sword, handle first.

“She’s an Argent,” he states in a grave voice.

Stiles stares at him wordlessly. Did he seriously not know her last name? She and Scott have been courting for weeks.

Derek exhales sharply, looks away.

Obviously, Argents are also not good enough for Derek Hale.

Stiles huffs out a breath. His first instinct was right; they need to stay as far away from these people as possible.

“We’ll see you around, I guess,” he mumbles coldly and leaves the Hale house, hoping to never ever return.


	4. Chapter 4

# 4

> _ “I beg your pardon; one knows exactly what to think.” _

Deaton doesn’t care whether Stiles ever gets married.

It’s a relief.

He does care that Stiles insists on spending as much time as possible in his practice, pestering him for books and lessons and _something to do, for the love of god, just let me hide in here for a while_. But he bears it with grace.

They work on ghoul research for a while but that soon hits a dead-end. Then Deaton makes him clean out cages, which is really not what Stiles is there for, but he’d prefer it to the season-talk he’ll encounter anywhere else in town, so he keeps the bitching to a minimum and does as he’s told. The week after that, Deaton gives him the good news of a possible haunting in San Diego, where he knows a coven of witches who might be open to taking in an intern for a month or two, which sounds right up Stiles’ alley but apparently Deaton’s going down there in September and planned for Stiles to accompany him then. He gives Stiles an impassive face when Stiles asks to maybe go now, right in the middle of the season, why not.

“San Diego in July, that’s the dream,” he all but begs, but it’s a no go.

“Read this,” Deaton orders one morning, slapping a book down in front of him.

“Water Magic?” That’s a new one for him. Stiles has mostly focused on flora and earth until now, and he was happy to keep digging there, maybe get some more expertise in protective magics. He has some theories involving root systems that he’d really like to explore further.

“Get the basics down before we visit Estelle. She won’t bother with teaching you the ABCs.”

It’s interesting once he gets into it; versatile, practical, and wonderfully straightforward. And it’s certainly convenient and cheap to experiment with, since he can find all kinds of water sources all over town and the preserve. The Nemeton also proves helpful on the subject, as it can taste and sense whatever Stiles did to the water and tells him whether it’ll do anything useful. Its knowledge, though not infinite, is vast. It’s been around a long time, and Stiles suspects it carries memories of more than itself; it seems to not only know other trees but what they’ve experienced as well.

The root network in the preserve is something to behold. Stiles can only sense a fraction of it, and that’s enough to amaze him time and again.

“What’s this,” Allison asks, coming up behind him in the kitchen.

Stiles has been so focused he didn’t even hear her come in.

“It _was_ unspoken water,” Stiles tells her. “Until you _spoke_.”

Allison winces. “And now it’s spoken water. Sorry.”

“I think that’s just called water.” He tips the copper bowl into the sink and watches his morning’s work swirl down the drain. “What’s up?”

“Dinner party,” Allison announces cheerfully.

Stiles groans. “Not this week.”

“Yes this week,” she tells him, nodding. “You and your dad are both invited. My grandfather insisted.”

Stiles gives her a suspicious look. “Your grandfather doesn’t even like me.”

“I know, right?” She looks entertained by that fact. “And yet he wants you there. He was very emphatic about it.”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“It’s gonna be all boring old farts aside from you and my aunt Kate. Please say you’ll come. _Pleeease_.”

Stiles throws his hands up in frustration. “Dad’s bringing Jordan over for dinner tonight—”

“ _Ooh_.”

“Do not even. I have lunch with Rosie tomorrow, because you know Isaac’s feeding her spaghetti four days a week. I have to work on this water thing with Deaton, and then on the weekend, there’s the whatever banquet. I don’t even remember where I’m supposed to be half the time. Now, your dinner party on…”

“Friday.”

Stiles heaves a deep sigh. “I can swing that, I guess.” What’s one more function in the grand scheme of things. He’s left himself to the mercies of the season. He’ll ride the waves until they spit him out at the end of August, hopefully with all his limbs intact. Or even half. He can make do with half.

Allison’s squealing at him, wiggling where she stands. Her ankle’s feeling much better apparently.

“In return, you will help me do the shopping for tonight.” If she can walk and she can wiggle, she can very well shop.

“What’s on the menu?” she asks, leaning against the counter.

“Barbecue ribs.” You cannot go wrong with barbecue when it comes to cops. “And creamed spinach,” he improvises. He goes down a mental Rolodex of side dishes his dad is allowed to eat. “Grilled brussels sprouts. And corn bread.” Jordan likes his corn bread.

“Yum,” Allison approves enthusiastically. “Dessert?”

“Frozen fruit cups?”

“ _Oh! Oh!_ ” Allison’s rocking up and down and doing a sort of jazz hands at him. “We should make those gin and tonic ice pops you made that one time!”

“If we had a night just to ourselves,” Stiles grumbles.

Allison wraps an arm around his neck, pulling him in. “How does your calendar look next week?”

“Hellish,” Stiles tells her honestly. “It looks like the true depiction of evil.”

-

Stiles is left to man the grill himself that night, because who could’ve guessed it, his dad is once again conspicuously absent, leaving him alone with Jordan.

His dad’s been making himself scarce before and after dinner the last couple of times Jordan came over. Stiles knows what he’s doing – the man is _not_ subtle – but he wishes he would just cut it out.

“Only _you_ could make brussels sprouts smell delicious,” Jordan says, strolling over with a pleasant smile on his face.

Stiles mirrors his smile. “You’re easy.”

Jordan’s a pleasant man. He’s relentlessly positive. In all the years they’ve known each other, Stiles has never once seen him angry. His dad likes him a lot – which is why he’s invited to dinner almost every month – and the sheriff does not suffer fools, so he has to at least be competent at what he does. He’s always respectful to a fault. Easy going. Friendly. Just your all-around good guy.

He’s also objectively hot. They came directly from the station so he’s still in his uniform, which fits him like a glove, and who doesn’t like a cop, right? Uniforms are always sexy. Unless your dad wears one, then this line of thinking is all kinds of disturbing.

Stiles had always thought he’d been spared the psychological trauma of being attracted to people that remind him of his parents, because he’d never really been attracted to cops. Then a couple years back he’d visited Lydia in school and met this girl in her Statistical Thermodynamics class who got dragged into an impromptu ghost hunt of sorts with them… well, long story short, while Stiles may not be attracted to people who remind him of his dad, he’s _insanely_ attracted to kind, sincere people with an iron will.

Like his mom.

He hasn’t felt that frisson of attraction in years, not since that girl (who was bonded to a childhood friend because of course she was) and not many times in total either. Lydia thinks he’s unnecessarily picky. Danny says he doesn’t give people a chance. The Nemeton thinks his libido’s hibernating. Stiles doesn’t particularly care.

What he does know is that he’s not interested in Jordan. Which is going to get awkward, he just knows it.

“So, how’s the season going?” Jordan asks, watching Stiles carefully flip the vegetables on the grill.

“Same as ever,” Stiles tells him. “You know how it is.” Jordan doesn’t attend full seasons, his job probably gets in the way, but Stiles has seen him in enough balls and parties to know he’s not a stranger to the whole spectacle.

“You’ve got your friends with you. That should make it fun.”

“Makes it bearable.”

Jordan opens his mouth again, but Stiles is really not interested in this subject, _at all_. “These are almost done. Could you see where my father’s disappeared to?”

It gets him a tight smile and a five-minute breathing room, and then, more of the same awaits him, this time with his father tagging along.

-

“You could give him a chance,” his father says after Jordan leaves.

Stiles wipes his hands, abandoning the dishes in the sink. He’s mostly been pretending to clean up to avoid an awkward goodbye. Jordan looked like he wanted to _talk_. Stiles very much does not want to have that conversation.

“Oh, so we’re acknowledging this now?”

“What?” his dad says, trying and failing to look clueless.

“I’m talking about your attempts at matchmaking. I already have Lydia on my back; I don’t need you pushing me at people as well.”

Now he’s made his father sad. Wonderful. “You know I’d never push you.”

Stiles takes a deep, calming breath. “I know that, dad.”

“He’s a good guy,” his dad reasons. “He likes you.”

That’s a stretch. “He likes my cooking.”

“Nothing wrong with that!”

Stiles returns to the dishes to avoid his dad’s hopeful face. “No, but if that’s all there is to it after all these years, then there’s no point hoping for something more, is there?”

“You can’t know what he’s thinking unless you listen to him.”

His dad is always so sensible. Stiles both loves and hates that about him.

“I know what _I’m_ thinking. I like Jordan just fine. But he’s a family friend and I never felt the need to move him into another category. He’s your friend. He likes you a lot. He looks up to you. He sees us as family, he’s made that clear. But this—it’s not right.”

“I just wish you could give it a shot.”

Stiles imagines him and Jordan, together. Imagines people looking at them, saying _well that just makes sense_. No one would be surprised, except for maybe Rosie, Isaac’s grandmother, who thinks he should marry a rich alpha he doesn’t like and have him murdered. It kinda sounds okay when she explains it to him.

“I could, to make you happy. But then it wouldn’t go anywhere and maybe he’d be heartbroken, maybe he’d be resentful, and—I don’t want to be the reason you two fall out.”

“Isn’t there any scenario where maybe it goes somewhere?”

Stiles turns to face him, offers him a tight smile. “I’m sorry. He’s like… beige.”

His dad blinks. “He’s like the color beige?”

Now his father’s wearing the familiar _Stiles is being Stiles_ face and the air suddenly clears between them, the warmth returns.

“He’s oatmeal,” Stiles says, his smile growing. “He’s elevator music. I’m sure he’s somebody’s wet dream but—”

“For god’s sake…”

“—I’m just not that person. Not even close. And I’m absolutely certain that I would drive him insane within months. Weeks, even. I’m doing him a favor, trust me on this.”

“Fine, fine,” his dad is saying, hands up in surrender, already halfway to the living room. “Forget I ever mentioned it.”

“Forgotten,” Stiles says, relieved. “And if you could maybe break it to him that—”

“I can’t hear you,” his dad yells, talking over him.

Stiles huffs. Maybe Jordan will take a hint after tonight. He can always hope.

-

“Rosie, love of my life, how are you today?”

Rosie gestures for Stiles to bend down and hugs him when he does. “You know how it is,” she tells him in her melodic raspy voice, “any day I’m not dead is a good one.”

“That’s a healthy way of looking at it.”

A grin stretches her impeccably painted lips.

Rosie and Isaac live in a huge apartment in what used to be the town center fifty years ago. Today, it’s between a sex shop and a 24-hour convenience store. The place is almost entirely decorated with antiques and Rosie would love to tell you about each and every piece at length. Stiles sometimes comes over just to look through her stuff. It’s like a bottomless time capsule.

He takes the groceries into her kitchen which is about twice the size of Stiles’ but sees absolutely no use. Stiles cleaned it out for them once, thinking maybe it would get Isaac to cook once in a while, but it was a foolish pursuit. At least it’s a cozy place to sit and have lunch together now, and Stiles enjoys cooking there. He’d want this for himself when he gets to be Rosie’s age; a warm kitchen that’s clean, cheerful, and full of history.

(Isaac says Stiles has a kitchen fetish. Stiles likes to think of himself more as a kitchen enthusiast.)

He pulls down one of the cookie jars from the shelf and fills it with the lemon sugar cookies he brought. He made a batch for the station and figured Isaac would appreciate having some on hand. They keep for a long time. Plus, he really enjoys using Rosie’s cookie jars. They’re super pretty.

For lunch, he brought leftover roast chicken for sandwiches, and he’s making potato salad and coleslaw on the side. He’s stashed a container of potato-leek soup in the freezer for later.

“You need to get laid, kid,” Rosie responds when he tells her that.

Isaac chortles from the doorway.

“I don’t know,” Stiles says, “I kinda think my soup might be better than sex.”

“You’re good, but not _that_ good,” Rosie declares.

She takes her usual seat at the table, an old floral armchair, and crosses her legs. She’s wearing a long, elaborate wrap in greys and purples, made of some kind of gauzy fabric. Stiles can’t even tell if that’s one garment or multiple layers.

“Absolutely everything was scandalous back in my day, but we still had the occasional romp,” Rosie muses as Isaac strides in. “You should be too busy to cook, as pretty as you are.”

“Stiles thinks he’s gonna end up bonded to some random alpha if he so much as touches one,” Isaac brings out the tired old argument.

“That’s a crock of shit,” Rosie rasps. “People don’t accidentally bond. That’s just what they used to say to keep omegas in gloves.”

“Rosie, come on, give me some credit.” Stiles keeps slicing the cabbage, but his movements have become a little sharper.

Isaac hops on the counter and takes a cookie from the jar. “Give me the name of one alpha you’ve slept with,” he challenges Stiles.

“You don’t deserve my cookies.”

Isaac stuffs the whole thing into his mouth as if Stiles is coming to get it.

“Child, how are you supposed to know what you like unless you sample?” Rosie tuts.

Stiles shrugs. “Haven’t met many alphas I’d like to… _sample_.”

Isaac chokes on the cookie, laughing.

“Serves you right,” Stiles tells him. He’s never met anyone worth sneaking around for, risking his dad’s reputation, so sue him. He’s experimented enough with omegas. It’s not like he’s a virgin or anything.

“Ah, well,” Rosie says, “I can understand that. Some of us are just particular. If it’s your nature, you can’t help it. Take it from me. I’ve sampled my fair share but never actually fell in love with any of them.”

Rosie bonded at eighteen, to an alpha her father’s age. It was considered an honor, as she tells it, since he was rich and handsome, and she was just the daughter of a fisherman. They moved to Beacon Hills together and had two children in two years. Her husband died soon after.

She doesn’t come out and say it but it’s heavily implied that it was the best thing that ever happened to her.

She liked her alpha well enough, but she never did love him. She loved her children very much though and being widowed gave her the chance to bring them up the way she wanted, on her own terms. That’s the loophole in the system; once you’re bonded or married to an alpha, the power, the rights, the inheritance carries over after their death. Rosie lived a comfortable life with what her alpha left her. She never remarried.

“Any regrets?” Stiles asks, though he thinks he knows the answer already.

“I’d’ve regretted not having babies, but falling in love? It’s not in my nature. You can’t regret what you don’t particularly want.” She gives him a shrewd look. “You’re going to be the exact opposite, I can tell.”

“I wouldn’t mind having kids.”

“I meant the other part,” Rosie says. “You’re going to hold out for love. You have that stubborn streak in you.”

Stiles actually doesn’t like the thought of that. “I don’t mean to,” he says. “I’d like to think there’s more to my life than that.”

Rosie makes a dismissive sound. “There’s more to all your lives than alphas,” she says. “Family. Purpose. Find yours and screw the rest, that’s what I say.”

Then she turns to Isaac with a fond look in her eyes. “What would’ve become of me without family? Best thing I’ve got by far.”

“Awwww,” Isaac coos, jumping down to give her a big hug that goes on and on. “I love you too, Nana.”

“You boys,” Rosie says, pretending to wipe her eyes. “Getting me all misty on a Sunday! Make me a cup of tea, will you, dear.”

“It’s Wednesday,” Isaac informs her.

“Eh,” she says with a wave. “It’s all Sunday when you’re my age. Now, tell me a fun story about how your season’s going because this is all the advice I’ve got for you this week.”

“I have a traumatizing one, if that’ll please the lady,” Stiles offers and brings out the big guns. “Jordan came to dinner last night, _again_ …”

-

The Argents are a long-established family in Beacon Hills, going back hundreds of years to before the Nemeton was cut down and all sorts of supernatural creatures called this place home openly and in peace.

They were, in fact, the keepers of that peace. Argents have a place in town’s history as the resident hunters, guardians of the code.

But that was a long time ago.

Today they own a series of hunting supply stores – for regular hunting, not the supernatural kind – run by Chris in California and his father in Nevada. Allison has been helping out since high school and is expected to take over sooner rather than later, maybe allowing them to grow even more.

They are among the wealthier residents of Beacon Hills and their home is kind of intimidating to Stiles. It’s slick and modern, open plan with high vaulted ceilings, indoor-outdoor entertaining areas with fireplaces, and just a fuck-ton of real pretty space that would probably be a bitch to clean.

Stiles can’t imagine living this large.

“I cannot believe you seated me next to your grandfather,” he whisper-yells at Allison, finding her on the balcony after dinner. “Do you have any idea what hell I’ve just been through?”

A throaty chuckle derails his argument.

“Sorry,” he says, wincing and clearing his throat. “Thought you were alone.”

“You know my aunt Kate,” Allison makes the introduction, though they all clearly know one another. It’s hard not to know everyone in a town this size.

Kate Argent is a lot older than them, and she lives in Nevada, as far as Stiles knows. She doesn’t visit often; Stiles has probably met her a grand total of three times. She’s cocky, brash, and annoyingly self-satisfied, namely everything Stiles finds irritating in an alpha, so he’s never particularly sought her company either.

Allison likes her though. He’s not going to be rude to someone Allison likes.

Well, not unless they _really_ ask for it.

“Hello. Sorry about that,” Stiles says. “I was just… uncomfortable… with the seating arrangements.”

Allison makes a face. Kate chuckles again, looking very amused. “My father’s certainly an acquired taste.”

“He was chatty tonight,” Stiles says, wondering. He doesn’t remember Gerard Argent ever taking an interest in him before, but it was like a game of twenty questions during dinner. “What does he care who I’m dancing with?”

Allison seems just as confused. “I have no idea what’s up with him.”

Stiles hijacks Allison’s drink and takes a sip. “One more course and I would’ve pulled the fire alarm. No offense.”

Allison pats his head comfortingly. A weird sound escapes Kate’s lips. It’s uncharacteristically meek, almost hurt, which makes Stiles look up at her.

“It’s the Hales,” she says, looking away into the distance. “He wants to make sure you guys are safe.”

Stiles and Allison share a confused look.

“What’s that mean?” Allison asks her.

Kate shrugs. Her lashes are wet suddenly. “We have a bit of a history.”

“I didn’t know that,” Allison says. “How come I didn’t know that?”

“I don’t like talking about it,” Kate tells her. “And it was a long time ago.”

Stiles wants to crow _I knew it!_ but lets Allison do the talking instead. Probably the wise choice, her aunt crying and everything.

“I didn’t even know you knew them,” Allison’s saying, eyes narrowed, leaning forward.

“Oh, I knew Derek Hale…”

Stiles instinctively straightens at the mention. It’s like a Pavlovian reaction by now.

Kate has a wicked glint in her eye. “I knew him kind of… biblically.”

“You did not!” Allison yells, and then covers her mouth. “Sorry.”

“We were actually engaged.”

“What,” Stiles bites out.

“To be married?” Allison blurts out, and then seems to realize the inanity of the question. “When was this?”

“Before the fire,” Stiles guesses. It has to be. But then, Derek would’ve been very young, wouldn’t he?

Kate nods. “We met during his first season, and it was love at first sight. We were inseparable all summer. He promised me… pretty much everything. That we’d bond, we’d get married, we’d have a family.”

Stiles is trying to guess her age. First season would be fifteen-sixteen, which makes sense for Derek Hale, but for a sixteen-year-old to sweep Kate off her feet... Maybe she’s younger than Stiles thinks. He can’t exactly ask right now.

“I was naïve,” Kate says. “I was so trusting that I made a spectacle of myself, no chaperones, no nothing. And then… he decided not to honor his promises.”

Allison looks taken aback.

Stiles has questions. “Why not?”

“Because I’m human.” Kate shrugs, chin held up defiantly. “Because I’m an alpha. He wanted a bond and got mad when it wouldn’t work between us. He may pretend not to be, but he’s very traditional, you know. He wouldn’t trust a human unless he could see into their head. So, he got what he could from me and left my reputation in tatters.”

That would explain why Kate Argent left town. As much as Stiles loves Beacon Hills, the town _is_ a terrible gossip, and super judgmental to boot.

“I don’t…” Allison’s shaking her head; she can’t seem to finish her thought.

“So, you see,” Kate says. “We’re just worried about what they want this time around.”

Allison shakes her head again. “Scott’s not like that…” She looks to Stiles for confirmation, but he doesn’t know what to say.

“You invited him tonight, didn’t you?” Kate prods. “Why didn’t he come?”

“He was busy,” Allison mumbles.

“Maybe. Or maybe Derek Hale isn’t letting him court a human alpha.”

Stiles doesn’t like the expression on Kate’s face. He _hates_ the distress in Allison’s. And he remembers the paleness of Derek Hale’s when he said _she’s an Argent_.

The words echo in his head. He doesn’t care what Derek Hale did a decade ago, but what he thinks he may be doing to Allison right now is making his blood boil.

“He wouldn’t,” Allison says in a small voice.

“I hope you’re right,” Kate says, but her face is full of pity.

-

Allison hugs him tight as he leaves, asking for a breakfast date the next morning.

“Mimosas,” Stiles promises her. “With pancakes.”

-

“I just don’t trust him,” Stiles says for about the millionth time that day.

“Nobody’s asking you to.”

He’s been talking about Derek Hale and Kate Argent for twenty-four hours straight and while the arguments have gone seventeen different directions, for him it all comes back to that one sentiment.

First, he hashes it out with his father on the way home from the dinner party, and his dad’s conclusion is that he actually would’ve warned a young Derek Hale against Kate Argent himself back in the end. He does not remember her youth in a positive light. Not that she was _that_ young; he confirms Stiles’ suspicion that Kate probably has eight-to-ten years on Derek Hale, which undercuts her swept-away-by-a-sixteen-year-old story considerably.

Also, Gerard Argent apparently spent the night talking about the Hale woes of his only daughter, and it got his dad’s Spidey senses tingling. He feels they seem to be protesting a bit too much, a bit too loudly.

Then comes his breakfast date with Allison, and she of course has only one thing on her mind. Allison wants to trust her aunt, which is natural, she thinks Kate wouldn’t lie to her, but she also believes Derek Hale is a good man.

Only Allison would try and make everyone into saints in this situation. Stiles personally thinks they’re all assholes. He and Allison are a real case of opposites attracting sometimes.

Stiles tries his best to be gentle with her, not disparaging her aunt or her prospective in-laws outright, but he has to share his impressions, to prepare her for the worst if nothing else: that Derek’s face told a different story once he learned she’s an Argent, that Scott being busy last night was certainly no coincidence.

His afternoon is spent with Lydia and Jackson, getting ready for the something-or-other banquet.

“Sure, don’t bother remembering, no biggie, it’s just the mayor throwing a little party.”

It’s cute how Lydia still thinks Stiles is one day going to care about these things.

Their opinions on the Hale vs. Argent situation are as nuanced as they are as people; meaning Jackson doesn’t particularly give a shit either way, and Lydia’s mind instantly starts working on a new angle to keep Kate out of the picture and present Allison as one of them instead of an Argent, a member of Lydia’s own family of somewhat-powerful misfits.

“Do we still want this to work, though?” Stiles wonders.

“Are you seriously telling me that Scott McCall is an evil mastermind, out to use people and break hearts?”

Probably not.

Isaac hears the story on the way to the banquet, and shares his two cents, proving once again that he’s the most human of them all. “Would you blame him for changing his mind on this one thing after losing his entire family in a traumatic way though?”

Fair. But still. Stiles does not like him.

“Who’s asking you to?” Danny looks actually curious.

Stiles throws his hands up. “Everyone!”

He’s so distracted by the issue of Derek Hale, that he completely forgets to avoid the man himself.

“May I have this dance?” Derek Hale himself asks, in the flesh, talking to Stiles.

Stiles’ brain pulls a blue screen, and he cannot muster a response.

Lydia comes to the rescue; except she does not rescue him at all. “He was just saying he wanted to dance,” she says sweetly, prodding Stiles forward.

Stiles trips, grabs onto Derek Hale’s arm, which he’s extended instead of his ungloved hand like an old-school gentleman and is pulled toward the dance floor.

They dance. Derek leads, Stiles follows. They go half a song without one word.

Stiles lets out a low chuckle despite himself. “I know you’re not much of a talker but spending a whole dance in silence is just wrong.”

Derek plays along. “What would you like to talk about?”

“We missed Scott last night,” he says, daring to open that can of worms. “Allison was heartbroken that he couldn’t make it.”

Derek narrows his eyes.

“Her family’s in town, you know,” Stiles prods further. “She wanted to introduce them.”

He hears a growl. “Just say what you want to say.”

Alright then. “Kate Argent doesn’t seem to like you very much.”

“Do you talk to everyone you meet about me?” And that’s one of the coldest tones Stiles has ever heard from the man, which is really saying something considering the source.

“I try to avoid it, actually. Ms. Argent was in a sharing mood, and she seems to think you’re quite evil.”

“She would know all about evil.”

Part of Stiles is sorry he ever opened his mouth on the subject. The rest of him is sorry he didn’t run the other way when asked to dance. From the corner of his eye he spots Jordan and suddenly all of him is wholly sorry that he ever came tonight.

“What’s the verdict then?” Derek asks, studying Stiles’ face. “Does my character survive an Argent dinner party?

“I think…” Stiles considers his words carefully, “that it’s not my place to pass judgement, nor do I particularly care. But I do care about Allison, and I don’t want her getting hurt because of your – or Kate’s – mess.”

Derek nods, like he expected that answer. “You’re protective of your friends.”

“You have your pack,” Stiles tells him, “I have mine.”

The music stops and Stiles takes a small step back, only to find himself stepping into Derek’s arms again when Jordan comes out of nowhere to try and claim the next dance.

“I’m sorry. I promised Mr. Hale a second dance,” he tells him, and subtly pushes Derek away from where Jordan’s standing.

He doesn’t relax until they’ve drifted far enough away and Jordan’s out of sight.

“Sorry,” he mutters. This is mortifying.

At least it amuses someone; Derek Hale is smiling, showing teeth and everything. “I’ve seen you running many times but usually it’s away from me, not towards me.”

“He’s a more imminent threat,” Stiles admits.

“Oh, I’m a threat, am I. That’s flattering.”

“Non-imminent,” Stiles clarifies, sharing a smile with the man for the first time and feeling all sorts of unsettled about it.

“Do you run away from alphas as a rule?”

“I’m not used to being chased,” Stiles tells him, and then corrects himself, “by ghouls, sure, but never by alphas.”

It earns him an eyebrow raise, and Derek Hale certainly has the eyebrows to raise. “Isn’t that the whole point of being here?”

That gets Stiles’ hackles up. “I’m not a game animal.”

“So, you attend these parties for the great music then?”

“The food, actually,” Stiles spits out. “And I’m not here to ‘bag’ an alpha, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“I think I may have been implying the opposite.”

Just like an alpha to openly question strangers’ romantic hopes and dreams. Not that Stiles has any, but if he did, this line of questioning would be quite rude. “And you? Hoping to attract a dutiful omega by scowling in the corners and glaring at the general populace?”

“I’d hardly be dancing with you if I was.”

The nerve of this man… “You’re here to show off. You wanted to reintroduce your pack to the neighborhood, but also show everyone how very beneath you they all are.”

Stiles is aware of the envious eyes on him, and if he had Derek’s senses he’d no doubt be hearing all the whispers. The whole town is after Derek Hale and he’s not going to spare anyone a single glance. And he’s implying Stiles is misleading alphas? Like anyone ever actually wanted _him_? The gall, the disrespect, the unimaginable douchebaggery of this man.

“Well, mission accomplished,” he tells Derek. “Look around, everybody wants you. You can now ignore them all and walk off having proven yourself the biggest, shiniest wolf in the whole neighborhood. Congratulations.”

They’ve stopped dancing. “That’s what you think I’m doing.”

Stiles honestly has no idea. This is as good a guess as any.

Derek steps back. “Thank you for the dance,” he says coldly. “I believe your alpha’s still waiting.”

_He’s NOT MY ALPHA,_ Stiles wants to scream. He holds it in behind clenched teeth and nods instead, tight and small, and steps away.

Derek grabs his sleeve. “You don’t trust me,” he whispers harshly.

“I don’t.”

“And you never do what you’re told but make an exception for this: Stay far away from Kate Argent.”

Stiles pulls his sleeve free, stares at the man for a long moment, and then leaves without a word.


	5. Chapter 5

# 5

> _ “The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.” _

“I feel that it’s time for me to start thinking about marriage,” is Jordan’s opening line, and it only gets worse from there.

Stiles stands on the balcony, where he was dragged out to as soon as he left Derek Hale’s general vicinity, and listens to Jordan go on about where he is in his life and what he’s planned for the future, seemingly not even considering what Stiles might’ve planned, as if that doesn’t affect the outcome of this conversation at all.

Stiles’ hands are clenched into fists and his jaw is tight enough to hurt. Jordan doesn’t seem to notice.

“I’m not one to care about money or status, you can be sure that those kinds of thoughts never even entered my mind; what I look for in a partner instead is honesty, integrity, and intelligence.” He smiles coyly. “You must have noticed that I’ve been interested in you for a while now. I’d like to make it official and begin courting you, with your father’s blessing.”

There’s a rage building inside Stiles that he’s trying to tamp down. It’s not directed at Jordan, not completely, but at the world at large—at Derek Hale, at his father, at Lydia, at all the people he loves and hates who become inadvertent pawns of this godawful system, because what Jordan’s saying is all perfectly acceptable, how gallant of him to disregard Stiles’ lack of wealth, how lucky for Stiles that an alpha is even considering him for marriage…

It builds in his stomach, bubbles up and threatens to spew out of his mouth, but he holds it back. He won’t let it. Jordan means well. Jordan is his father’s friend and coworker. Jordan—can go to hell for all Stiles cares at this moment, but he will be respectful even when feeling murderous because that’s what omegas are taught to do.

God knows he’s had plenty of practice.

“Jordan,” he starts, his tone careful and calm. “You know I like you very much. You’re a wonderful person and a great friend to me and my father.” Jordan’s face is shining with pride and Stiles hates to do it but—there’s no other choice. “Believe me when I say that I’m honored by your proposal, but it’s impossible for me to accept it.”

Jordan looks confused. “Impossible…? Are you courting someone else?”

Stiles shakes his head. “It’s not about anybody else. I simply think that we’re not right for each other.”

Jordan raises his hands, nods in understanding. “I sprung this on you out of nowhere. You should sleep on it. We’ll talk again in a couple of days. And once you talk to your father, I’m sure—”

He’s trying to usher Stiles back inside, but Stiles is done being managed by alphas tonight. First one of them compares him to a zebra being circled by lions, now he’s being corralled like an unruly cow. He shrugs off the hand on his shoulder and stands his ground.

“I’ll thank you not to teach me my own mind,” he bites out, barely hanging onto his manners. “I’ve thought about it plenty, not that I needed to. I like you just fine but there’s never been anything romantic between us. I certainly never felt a hint of it.”

“We never even gave it a shot,” Jordan says, taken aback.

“We never felt the need to give it a shot, is my point. In any case, I know myself, and I know enough about you to recognize that we wouldn’t make each other happy.”

Jordan huffs, blinks unattractively, and says in a cold voice, “This is about Derek Hale, isn’t it?”

Stiles sees red. Because it _has to be_ about another alpha. He doesn’t get to say no otherwise. “This is about a grown man knowing his own heart. I’m the last person in the world who could give you what you’re looking for, I guarantee it. I value your friendship and I hate to make you unhappy, but my answer is final.”

Jordan’s normally generous face has shut down. “Life’s not a fairytale, you know,” he comments. “You’re making a mistake.” There’s an ugliness to his features as he speaks that makes Stiles shiver.

“It’s mine to make,” he replies, and with a tense nod, leaves the balcony.

-

Stiles walks through the next few weeks in a red haze, unable to look his friends, even his father in the eye.

He’s done nothing wrong; no one would say otherwise, and he hasn’t lost it so completely as to actually blame his father or Lydia for the asshole alphas in his life, but it’s all fun and games until someone loses their faith in society and Stiles is trying desperately at this point to hold on.

He begs off one minor dinner party, makes a brief appearance at another. He conveniently forgets to charge his phone. He avoids his father by leaving his breakfast on the counter and disappearing into the woods until dark. Mostly he keeps reading up on water magic, ritual washing, river creatures, and spends long hours in the preserve experimenting with one of the smaller streams.

Whatever the Nemeton says, he’s not hiding. He’s merely… recharging.

Moving water has that effect on people after all, and besides, forest bathing is totally the latest thing. He’s being trendy here; Lydia should be proud.

He emerges from his partial exile on a Saturday to bake for the annual charity picnic basket auction the next day. He has a standing promise to Mrs. Duncan, his kindergarten teacher, who organizes the event every year. It’s for the local hospital so he’d want to help either way, but once Mrs. Duncan told him his basket was always one of the most sought-after ones, he couldn’t possibly skip it.

The event has a long and dubious history in Beacon Hills. It was first conceived as a sort of omega bachelor auction, where the basket came with its creator. While that must’ve been the height of romance back in the day, with the current climate they had to do away with the _bachelor_ and _omega_ parts of the event to avoid the omega sale imagery it brought to mind, and put the emphasis on food and charity instead, making it much more palatable for everyone.

It’s still mostly omegas donating the baskets, habits and tradition are hard to break, but at least Stiles doesn’t have to worry about essentially selling his time along with his apple turnovers.

“Look everyone, it’s Mr. Crankypants!” Jackson crows when Stiles arrives at the picnic.

Danny wraps an arm around his neck and pulls him down on the blanket. “We missed you,” he says, pressing a smacking kiss to his cheek.

Stiles lets gravity pull him all the way down and comes to rest on his back, looking up at his friends. “I did not miss you one bit,” he lies with a smile.

Lydia throws a raisin at his head, and then keeps going when he picks it up and eats it. “Are you done sulking?”

Stiles catches the next one in his mouth. “I wasn’t sulking. I was—”

“Recharging, yes, we got your text,” she says. “Thanks for letting us know you’re alive, by the way.”

“You’d be the first to know if I was dead,” Stiles points out.

Jackson turns to Lydia and asks, “Do you still have to scream if we’re the ones doing the killing?”

“We could try and see,” she answers sweetly.

Stiles scoffs at them. “You’d be lost without me.”

“We’d be _hungry_ without you,” Isaac corrects him.

“Speaking of food,” Danny says, raising his head as if catching a scent, “has the bidding started yet?”

Danny and Isaac pull each other towards the auction area where the baskets are placed on a series of tulle covered tables.

“Try and get Stiles’!” Allison yells after them.

“We’re not that rich!” Danny yells back.

Stiles steals the bag of raisins from Lydia and stays on his back. It’s a picturesque day, and he’d much rather watch the clouds than the people around them. He notices Lydia and Allison gesture-fighting in an unsurprisingly transparent way, and tries not to get pulled into it, but after the third whispered _no, you tell him_ he sits up with a groan.

“Tell me what?”

“Your deputy’s engaged,” Jackson says. Lydia hits him on the chest. “Ow! Somebody had to man up!”

Stiles blinks, uncomprehending. “What?”

“Jordan got engaged,” Allison confirms in a gentler tone.

Laughter bubbles, Stiles tries to hold it in. “What?” he asks again. Because _what_.

“To Heather,” Lydia says.

“WHAT.”

Allison is nodding. “I know. It’s ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously fast, maybe,” Jackson says, reclaiming the bag of raisins from Stiles’ slack hold. “But I actually like them as a couple.”

“They’re both perfectly bland,” Lydia allows. “Sorry, I know they’re your friends.”

Stiles shakes his head. He’s still not quite past _what_. “How?” he asks, and then, “When?” When did he even find the time to court her?

“Couple days ago, I guess,” Allison tells him. “And I have no idea how or why. Well, I guess we all know _why_.”

“That’s… wow.”

“You know shit’s gone crazy when Stiles is out of words,” Jackson mutters.

He’s not wrong.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Are you alright?” Allison asks quietly.

Stiles shrugs. “Well, yeah. I mean, losing my faith in humanity bit by bit, sure, but other than that, this honestly has nothing to do with me.”

Lydia gives him a _look_. “We all know this has _everything_ to do with you.”

“I don’t know. People’s motivations are… their own business. I just mean it has nothing to do with me emotionally. I have nothing invested there. I’m not… hurt or anything.”

Allison’s rubbing his back and Stiles appreciates the gesture. He may not be hurt but he’s shocked, that’s for sure.

“They’re a good match, I’m telling you.” Jackson talks over Allison’s objections. “People don’t always marry for love. Sometimes it’s convenient. Logical.”

“You’d at least take enough time to make sure you want the same things out of life,” Lydia counters.

Jackson rolls his eyes and counts on his fingers. “Marriage, kids, where to live. It’s like a fifteen-minute conversation.”

“Says the man who married the love of his life,” Allison mocks him.

“If I hadn’t met Lydia,” he says, tightening his hold around her waist, “I would’ve ended up marrying someone convenient. Exactly my point.”

“And you would’ve been miserable,” Allison tells him.

“Maybe. But I wouldn’t’ve moped around forever waiting for a unicorn. Making a logical marriage match is perfectly valid.”

“Is the unicorn me in this scenario or Lydia?” Stiles wonders.

“You’re both unicorns,” Jackson declares. “And you should be more understanding toward those who miss out on being with you.”

“Jackson’s being sweet,” Stiles comments, marveling. “Shit really has gone crazy.”

Lydia snickers into the kiss she’s giving her husband.

-

It’s a quiet, pleasant day, spent in their own corner of the picnic area, ignoring everyone else. They eat the muffins Danny and Isaac won in the auction and chat about their winter plans.

Allison’s going to be packing up her apartment in Boston in a couple of months and moving back home. Danny chose to do his master’s closer to home, and he’s already moved back in. With Isaac and Stiles already in Beacon Hills, it’s almost like the good old days when they were all together, all year long.

They’ll only have to wait on Lydia and Jackson now, and surely it can’t take them longer than a couple more years to conquer the world, or create a new species, or whatever else Lydia’s set her eye on.

They decide to call it a day, go home, change, and meet back up that night at Lydia and Jackson’s to spend some quality time on their own, just the five of them. It seems Stiles is not the only one feeling the season catching up with him.

Their things gathered, they walk a slow, winding path through tables and blankets and picnic chairs. Halfway there, Stiles spots a familiar green bow on a basket handle. Then he spots a familiar blonde head, joined by another, joined by—someone Stiles truly is sick of the sight of by now.

“Oh, _Stiles_ ,” Ava drawls in her weird, posh accent. “These cherry tartlets are to die for!”

“You should do this for a living,” Amelia adds, over the top.

“ _You_ won Stiles’ basket?” Lydia asks, sounding a little bit like she’s getting ready to shank someone.

“Derek had the highest bid,” Amelia informs them. Derek doesn’t move or react at all; eyes hidden behind aviators.

“You know,” Ava says, leaning toward Stiles, making him instinctively lean back, “if you’re ever in New York my family would totally hire you.”

Amelia fails to stifle a snort.

Stiles feels Allison’s hand grab the back of his shirt and waits to feel mad. It doesn’t come. He must’ve maxed out at some point. Now he stares at the girls and feels only a minor annoyance. They’re young, and spoiled, and stupid. With any luck they’ll grow out of it. If not, well, Stiles sure hopes one of them ends up bonded to Derek Hale. Having _that_ in his head twenty-four/seven is exactly what he deserves.

He turns to the man in question to find him unmoved. Or frozen, it’s hard to say.

“Thank you for the donation,” he says. “The funds are going to the neurology department this year, where my mother was treated, so I appreciate it.”

Derek doesn’t respond, but Stiles didn’t expect him to anyway.

“Enjoy the lemonade,” he tells the ladies as he leaves. “The lemons came from my own tree.”

They’re only a couple steps away when Isaac tuts at him. “That tree’s never gonna forgive you for this.”

Stiles sighs. He’s lucky if the Nemeton doesn’t hear about it.

-

Gin and tonic ice pops are best enjoyed on the side of a glass of the actual drink. Stiles is ready to fight anyone who says otherwise.

They’ve been fed, watered, and let loose around the pool. Danny and Jackson are taking a dip, while the girls and Isaac – the protective mother hens that they are – chose to stick close to Stiles all evening. They’re sprawled over Lydia’s large paisley cushions and the one really comfortable sun lounger, with Stiles’ legs dangling in the water and Isaac’s head in Allison’s lap.

Allison showed them Scott’s text saying he’s soon leaving Beacon Hills and has no idea when he’ll be able to return, so the mood is downright somber.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Isaac says. “He still has school. He was always going to leave.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to mean anything that Derek Hale bid on Stiles’ basket and gave it to the knucklehead twins, but it sure feels significant,” Lydia muses.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything that the alpha who proposed to me got engaged to someone else in ten days,” Stiles offers.

“It certainly doesn’t mean jack shit that Scott was busy the last two dinner parties and then again today.” Allison looks down at her hands.

Stiles sighs. “At least it’s been an eventful season.”

Lydia flicks the back of his head.

“At least,” Allison says, looking serious, “none of us are truly heartbroken over any of this.”

“You’re not?”

She takes a deep breath, almost steeling herself. “I like him. I like him more than I ever liked anyone else. But he never made any promises, any concrete plans, so… It’s not like Kate. I can’t claim to have been wronged. We had fun and I guess… that was it.”

Lydia’s shaking her head.

“He’ll be forgotten in no time.” Allison’s voice sounds delicate, but she puts on a smile. “Things will go back to the way they were.”

“No offense but I don’t want things to go back to the way they were. I want a brave new world where we say _fuck the season_ and just stop attending these godawful parties already.”

Stiles doesn’t get the immediate pushback he expected, so he straightens up and looks to Lydia in surprise.

She shrugs. “I’m reconsidering my position.”

“Fuck yeah,” Isaac mutters excitedly. Allison looks intrigued.

Lydia wags a finger to say _not so fast_. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be out there. My cause is just!”

“But you concede that this year was a shitshow?” Isaac asks.

“Yeah, what’s _up_ with that?” Lydia says, looking confused and drunk. “The Hale Pack was supposed to bring some class to the proceedings, not—be a bag of dicks.”

“Who’s a bag of dicks?” Jackson asks, surfacing next to Stiles’ feet.

“The Hales.”

“Oh.” Jackson nods to himself like _fair enough_.

“Hot like burning though,” Danny comments. He’s floating on his back in the middle of the pool. Jackson splashes him away.

“I don’t particularly care,” Stiles realizes all over again. “I can’t even pretend to be attracted to cruelty, and I’m not risking my freedom for any kind of security. If the fucking season’s about finding the one the way Jordan found Heather, then seriously, I’m out.”

“I still don’t believe the Hales mean to be cruel,” Allison says, an optimist to the end. “We don’t know their situation; we shouldn’t judge too harshly.”

“That says more about you than them,” Stiles points out.

Allison shrugs. “Scott means well, you know he does. And Jordan’s a good person. We’ve known him a long time. Everyone acts cruelly sometimes without meaning to. It doesn’t make them evil.”

“Isn’t that kinda worse though?” Isaac wonders. “When you’re casually cruel? Or casually disrespectful?”

“There was something so ugly on Jordan’s face,” Stiles remembers. “I can be cruel with the best of them. I can be ugly; you know I can. But I certainly hope it’s never with so little incentive.”

“So, are we vowing to be eternal bachelors or what?” Danny asks, floating closer once again.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lydia scoffs. “My marriage is perfectly fine, so will yours be. It’s just… taking a while to get there.”

“I can vow to never be anyone’s safety choice,” Isaac says. “Beggars and choosers and all that, I know, but what Jordan did to Heather is not cool.”

“I vow to never marry anyone less than perfect for me,” Danny says loftily. “All or nothing, baby. If I have to kiss a million frogs, so be it.”

“You just want to kiss a million alphas,” Isaac protests.

“And that’s a problem because…?” Danny trails off, floating away.

Allison sits up. “I vow… to keep my heart a little safer next time around.” She nods to herself, determined. “Play it closer to the vest. A little caution wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Stiles wraps a hand around her ankle and gives it a squeeze.

“What about you,” Lydia asks. “What’s your resolution?”

She looks tense, slightly offended, and now Stiles is going to be offending her even more.

“I vow to… stop playing by other people’s rules,” he says. “It’s my life; I get to live it my way.”

Lydia looks away in a hurry and stands up. “I’m gonna get more ice pops, and when I come back, we’re going to be talking about something other than my failures.”

“Aww, Lyds—”

She makes a slashing motion. “I love you all very much,” she all but yells at them. “And I want you to be happy! So, I’m getting you alcohol!”

“Maybe no more for her though,” Stiles tells Jackson after she storms off.

“Told her we shouldn’t have kids this young,” he replies and disappears into the water.


	6. Chapter 6

# 6

> _ “We neither of us perform to strangers.” _

By the end of August all the Hales and the Hale-adjacent people have left town, except for Melissa, who’s basically the only one of them Stiles would like to keep anyway. She stays at the pack house while construction crews keep working on the estate, building multiple guest houses, a couple of which remind Stiles of Lydia’s parents’ house, a behemoth in his estimation.

Stiles has to conclude that while they’re gone for now, they plan to be back with a vengeance in the near future.

The season comes to a close with the notable absence of Lydia and company, who all agree – possibly to humor Stiles – that they’re done for the year. Lydia pledges a new approach for the next season; Stiles, for his part, makes no promises.

Allison and Lydia plan a road trip the last week of August and take off before September kicks in, just the two of them. Jackson goes to his parents’ summer home, Danny and Isaac get in study mode, and Stiles makes plans for his own little trip with Deaton.

Stiles loves the quiet winter months when the town is peaceful, the preserve is hibernating, and he has all the time in the world to study whatever Deaton sees fit. He also loves the idea of getting away for a few weeks though, because as much as he’s always loved Beacon Hills and has gladly sacrificed for the town, he’ll never not envy those who get to travel and live elsewhere.

He chose not to go to college when he realized that his first, second, and third choice schools would all be too far away for him to keep tabs on the Nemeton. Deaton assured him that it would be fine, he’d be there to pick up the slack, but leaving his father’s safety to someone else never sat right with him. He considered a closer school like Isaac’s, figured that _something_ would be better than nothing at all, but the thought of arranging for chaperones, putting his father in debt, spending so much time and resources on something he wouldn’t be enthusiastic about made him give up the notion completely in the end.

Deaton came to the rescue with an offer Stiles probably would’ve accepted over most schools anyway; that Stiles work with him the next few years, until he can figure out what he wants to do with his life.

It’s been going on four years now and neither of them have mentioned graduating Stiles at all. Deaton doesn’t come out and say it, but they both know what he’s putting Stiles through is basically a druid-in-training program, and something of that magnitude, Stiles figures, would take considerably longer than Allison’s business degree.

Deaton likes to push Stiles, challenge him, and he makes sure to expose him to diverse experiences, which is why Stiles often accompanies him when he travels. He has many associates who contact him on their varied problems. He and Stiles have handled territory negotiations, mysterious illnesses, hauntings, all sorts of magical infestations, and on one memorable occasion, a wendigo. Whenever they get a new call, it’s like a trip to Disneyland for Stiles.

And ghosts? Are his favorite.

The plan for this trip is for Stiles to work with Estelle every morning, and when they say morning, they mean before dawn—which is not technically morning as far as Stiles is concerned, but he’s not about to argue semantics with a sixty-something witch.

Deaton sometimes joins them, sometimes does his own thing. Estelle’s coven is a large one and as the lessons progress, a lot of them drop by, younger ones eager to learn while the older members kindly give Stiles pointers. There’s also some gawking happening but Stiles is used to it; he’s come to realize that his spark is an unusual one. Magic users in particular tend to find him strange, which is really pot calling the kettle wacky if you ask him.

The coven runs an occult apothecary called The Divine, filled to the brim with books, candles, oils, and countless knick-knacks; and in exchange for Estelle’s lessons, Stiles is working the register there every afternoon. It’s a steal, considering that they’ve also provided him with accommodations. The house he’s staying in may be haunted, but it’s his own space and more of it than he gets at home in Beacon Hills. Plus, staying there is convenient because any spare minute he finds he’s going to be working on the ghost problem anyway.

Overall, it’s a dream of an arrangement for Stiles.

Except for William. He’s a complication Stiles could do without.

“Whatcha doin’?” he asks, leaning over the counter as he’s been doing almost daily, and getting right in Stiles’ space.

“Reading,” Stiles tells him, showing him the cover of his borrowed book.

“Interesting?”

“Not really,” Stiles admits and closes it with a thud. “What are _you_ doing?”

“Something fun,” William offers, “that you’re going to come up with?” He smiles winningly.

He does have a truly winning smile.

“You can help me make some more evil eye candles,” Stiles offers, hoping he’ll say no, but of course not. William never says no. And he never gives up.

“You get the evil; I’ll go find the eyes.”

-

William Henry Austin is an alpha, a werewolf, and gorgeous in the way only supernatural creatures seem to be. He has dark skin, green eyes, and an endlessly relaxed attitude. He’s a huge flirt and has a way of making a person feel like they’re the only interesting thing in the whole world.

He’s also a member of the Crawford Pack.

Stiles does have a working libido, whatever his friends may think, and he does take notice when something that attractive orbits around him. He could totally be following Rosie’s advice on sampling alphas in this instance, except… that particular pack association is like a cold shower to him. The thought of Ava and Amelia being, however remotely, related to anyone he ‘samples’ is a stupendous turn-off.

So, he pretends to be oblivious and tries to ignore the pointed jibes of the girls in the coven.

They’re bored, Stiles reasons. He can be generous and provide some light entertainment.

“I knew adopting a gorgeous stray would pay off one of these days,” Mother Allegra says, smirking at Stiles.

She’s been leaning against the bookshelves, watching William try to wheedle Stiles into coming to dinner with him for the last ten minutes. William tries something every day. If it’s not dinner, it’s a party. If it’s not a party, it’s concert tickets. His ideas seem endless and Stiles is fast running out of excuses.

“Which one do you mean?” her wife, Marie, asks with a wicked smile. They both cackle like, well, witches.

“You think you’re _so_ cute,” Stiles mutters darkly.

Allegra and Marie close up the shop five days a week, while the rest of the coven take turns on the weekends. They must have a psychic group chat or something going, because every one of them comes in early now, just to watch William and Stiles do their little dance.

You’d think they’d have much better things to do, living in a city like San Diego and being part of an established coven. But _no_. Stiles is their amusement.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he throws out as he makes his getaway.

The walk to the house is routine by now, but at least it gives him a chance to get out of that headspace—the one where he’s somehow become alpha-nip and every alpha he encounters feels the need to lift his leg and pee on him.

Okay, that’s probably not fair. William is a decent guy. He’s a software developer, in the city as his sister’s chaperone while she attends university, and he happens to be in between projects right now. He’s bored and Stiles is a novelty. It’s not like he’s being pushy or rude. Stiles actually quite enjoys spending time with him.

It’s just the Ava of it all.

Plus, Stiles has sworn off romance for at least a year, possibly ten.

He arrives at the garden gate and it creaks open for him invitingly. “Thank you,” he mumbles, walking inside. The wooden front door doesn’t unlock itself, not every part of the house is as considerate, so Stiles uses his key to get in.

He closes the door behind himself and leans against it with a sigh.

“Home sweet—”

“SHOW ME THE MEANING OF BEING LONELY,” Backstreet Boys blare from disconnected speakers.

“I know, I know,” Stiles mutters. “I missed you too, Dorothy.”

-

Dorothy was a teenager when she died in her sleep from a previously unknown heart condition. Her family moved away a decade ago, but she stuck around, and when the house finally sold last year, she became a problem.

Stiles has been pouring over the details of her life and death, as well as the coven’s notes on what she’s been doing in the house, how she reacted to people, and everything that’s been done to… lay her to rest, so to speak.

Dorothy doesn’t ever manifest as herself, Estelle thinks she’s not strong enough, but she loves making herself known. Slammed doors, randomly soaring curtains, unexpected noises are her specialties. She likes some people, hates others, acts sullen towards pretty much everyone as any teenager would.

Stiles likes her. He certainly doesn’t mind having her for a roommate.

He has ideas about how she could be made to move on, but he wants to get it absolutely right, so he’s taking his time with it.

The kitchen light comes on and the fridge door opens invitingly.

Stiles isn’t even hungry, but okay.

“Chinese or pasta, what do you think?” he absently asks the ghost. He doesn’t expect an answer, but it’s become habit to talk to her, just to acknowledge that she’s there.

Something clinks behind him and he turns to find a wine glass dancing on the counter.

“Nah,” he says. “I’ll just have water tonight. Maybe tea, later.”

Allison calls while he eats, so he puts her on speaker. “Say hi to Dorothy,” he says; he doesn’t want to be rude.

“Hi, Dorothy!” Allison shouts.

“She’s not deaf, you know.”

They talk about packing, moving furniture, which pieces are worth taking all the way across the country, how one accumulates the weirdest things—which Stiles wouldn’t know; he never had the luxury of his own apartment.

Allison doesn’t mention Scott, and Stiles doesn’t ask. Last time they talked he found out about Allison reaching out, informing Scott that she’ll be in New York for a few days. Scott was busy. He always is these days.

“He’s always perfectly warm and friendly, so I have to conclude that he’s politely telling me he’s no longer interested. I’m not going to bother him again. This was it, the last try.”

Stiles has known Allison long enough to know that this is the real deal for her. She was never taken with anyone like this; whatever she says, she’s heartbroken.

He knows Scott well enough to know he wouldn’t change his mind overnight.

But, as Allison told him last week, it’s done and it’s in the past. Better to leave it there.

“When are you going to be home?”

“Hmmm, second week of October, probably,” Allison says. It’s three weeks away. “Danny promised me a welcome home party full of college seniors, including the swim team, so I’m looking forward to _that_.”

Stiles chuckles. That’s not even a joke. Danny’s super popular with the college crowd, and the swim team is super popular with Danny.

“You?”

“Uh, longer, probably,” he says. “I’m nowhere near done here. End of October looks more likely.”

“Try and get back for Halloween, at least. We can’t have Halloween without your dancing will-o'-the-wisps.”

“Convince Lydia to come and I’ll be there.”

“Oh, I see how it is.”

They agree on coaxing, pressuring, and threatening everyone into coming home for Halloween and say goodbye on that loving note.

Stiles makes himself a cup of jasmine tea when the kettle whistles all by itself, and then goes out to spend some time in the backyard. There’s still work to be done out there as well.

“Hello,” he says, smiling at the red maple tree and taking a seat on the ground under its branches. “How are you today?”

The maple hums a warm welcome in his mind.

Stiles closes his eyes and focuses on the wind.

-

“No, wait, wait, here, it’s gonna work this time.”

Stiles has learned a new trick, not terribly useful but super fun, and is showing it to William.

Trying to, anyway.

He has a large bowl filled with water on the counter, and manipulating heat and air, he’s going to create a miniature tornado in it. It’s very neat when it works, and William’s been patiently staring into the bowl for fifteen minutes now. Stiles has to pull it off this time or it’s going to be really embarrassing.

He places two fingers on the side of the bowl, rubs them back and forth and feels the water, the heat, the air, gets ready to push a little harder this time since the last one was so pitiful.

The bell above the front door chimes, signaling a customer.

Stiles pushes, a bit too hard, and then instinctively pulls back to see who’s come, and—

The water in the bowl rises up in a column and splashes William right in the face.

“Oh, no.” Stiles hides his smile under his palm. “Shit. I didn’t mean to do _that_.” He drops the bowl and reaches automatically towards William’s cheek, only to pull back when he realizes what he’s doing. He looks around. “I don’t have a towel.”

William’s smiling back at him, dripping all over the floor, shaking his head like a dog. “You’re a menace, Stilinski,” he’s saying, eyes twinkling.

And that’s when Stiles notices the person that walked in.

His stomach does a summersault and not in a good way.

“Derek!” William says happily, pulling his shirt up to dry his face. “I didn’t know you were in town!”

Derek nods wordlessly, looks at William, then at Stiles, then back at William, until Stiles is done being surprised and has inevitably started getting annoyed.

Is this guy going to show up everywhere he goes from now on?

“Stiles,” Derek greets him.

Stiles nods an acknowledgment. “I’ll go find a towel,” he tells William and ducks into the backroom to escape the weirdness.

-

“Not a fan?” William asks later, as they share the small corner table for a coffee break.

“Not the biggest,” Stiles admits, pretending to be engrossed in his coffee.

“I do appreciate being your favorite, don’t get me wrong, but I thought everyone liked Derek in Beacon Hills.”

Stiles raises his eyebrows. He’s not about to refute the favorite part but Derek Hale being liked by everyone, really? “I’m special, I guess.”

“So, if I am indeed more likable than Derek Hale, are you finally going to agree to go out with me?”

Stiles smiles wide.

“I know I’m not rich, but I have the charming personality.”

“Oh, yeah, you really are hurting for money.” Stiles rolls his eyes. William’s dad might be a human schoolteacher, but his mother is Catherine Crawford’s only sister. William’s definition of ‘not rich’ is probably a bit skewed.

“I’ll have you know we had just the one piano growing up,” William tells him, wide eyed and serious. “I overcame a lot to be here to today.”

Stiles cracks up at the look on his face.

-

That night, when Stiles steps outside The Divine after his shift, he finds Derek Hale loitering on the sidewalk.

“Hello,” he says, a greeting and a question rolled into one.

“Stiles,” Derek acknowledges him, stepping closer. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stay this morning; I didn’t expect to find you here.”

That sounds rehearsed; and isn’t it Derek Hale in a nutshell to rehearse saying such a regular thing?

“Ditto,” Stiles tells him. “But here we both are.”

“I knew Deaton was visiting, but he didn’t mention he brought you along.”

And here we go, now Stiles is insulted once again. What’s that supposed to mean exactly? That Stiles should come with a warning?

He holds his tongue and thinks happy thoughts. “I should…” he says, gesturing towards the way he was meant to go. Not that this isn’t fun or anything.

“Oh, of course,” Derek says, but before Stiles can breathe a sigh of relief, steps in line with him. “I’ll walk with you.”

Stiles opens his mouth, and then shuts it without a word.

“How’s your father?” Derek asks, as if they’re two friends catching up.

“Fine, he’s fine.”

“And your friends?”

“Back in school,” Stiles says. “Except for Allison. She’s moving back home in a few weeks.”

“That’s good,” Derek Hale says, making small talk apparently.

“How are Ava and Amelia?” Stiles asks, the sarcasm hopefully well-masked in his voice.

“Haven’t seen them in over a month,” Derek says. “They must be back in school as well.”

“Good for them,” Stiles says. Those two certainly need some schooling. “And Scott? I hear he’s very busy.”

“He’s focused on his studies,” is Derek’s answer to that. He pauses for a beat and then, “You work for Estelle?”

“While I’m here.”

“And you’re here for…?”

“I’m helping the coven deal with a problem,” Stiles tells him. He doesn’t feel like getting into the whole training part of it. With Derek, his instinct is always to hold back as much as possible. It doesn’t help that he’s feeling like he’s being interrogated.

“ _They_ need _your_ help,” Derek repeats slowly, probably trying to make sense of it, but it also sounds a bit like mocking to Stiles.

“And what are _you_ here for?” Stiles changes the subject, before things can take a turn for the worse.

“Work, mainly,” Derek answers. “Also wanted to stop by and talk to Deaton about something.”

“You work?” That actually never occurred to Stiles.

Derek smiles. “Freelance. I’m an architect.”

“Oh.” Stiles didn’t know that. Lydia probably did, but she never mentioned it. Isaac’s studying architecture; Stiles would’ve remembered hearing this. “Are you any good?”

Derek chuckles. “I don’t know. Did you like the house?”

Oh. He did like the house. “You designed that.”

Derek nods.

“Great kitchen,” Stiles says without thinking, and then feels the need to explain. “Sorry, I have a thing for kitchens.”

“I’m not surprised,” Derek tells him.

Thankfully, they arrive at the house before Stiles can blurt out how much he loved the library as well. “This is it,” he says with relief.

The gate opens invitingly; Derek grabs Stiles’ arm to hold him back.

He looks like he’s seen a ghost, Stiles thinks with amusement.

“There’s a—"

“Ghost, yeah,” Stiles says, standing firm at the door so Derek won’t ask to come in.

“Why are you staying here, with a ghost in the house?”

“It’s why I’m in town,” Stiles says, and while Derek is still too surprised to react, bids him goodnight and hurries inside to the safety of his haunted house.

-

“That was kinda fun,” he tells Dorothy. He’d never seen Derek Hale look that weirded out before.

“BUT IT AIN’T NO LIE BABY BYE BYE BYE,” Dorothy agrees with him.

-

Much to Stiles’ dismay, the daily walks home with Derek Hale continue happening, and he doesn’t know how to put a stop to it without having yet another row with yet another alpha. Stiles hates being that predictable, so he endures the stilted conversation night after night and tries to think of it as a necessary evil of being in San Diego—like the traffic or the crowds.

William pouts about it because when he tried walking Stiles home that one time, Stiles told him a firm no. In Stiles’ defense though, William’s offer of walking him home had been a euphemism while all Derek Hale seems to be doing is awkwardly trying to be a regular person. Also, he didn’t give Stiles the choice the first time and now it would be uncomfortable to tell him to stop the insanity.

They talk about everyday things with weird asides that Stiles can’t quite make heads or tails of. How much does Stiles travel? Would he want to live in a city one day or does he prefer staying in Beacon Hills? Did he want to go to college? What would he have studied if he had? Has he been able to find a park he enjoys in San Diego? Has he always known he had the—

“Spark,” Stiles helps him along. “That’s what Deaton calls it.”

“Right,” Derek says, looking at him like that was a revelation and not a technical clarification. “Spark.”

Derek seems genuinely interested in what he’s doing with Dorothy and the house, so that’s at least something less personal that Stiles feels comfortable talking about. He always did find it helpful to talk out problems, bounce ideas off of people, so Stiles ends up forgetting who he’s with and talking at Derek _a lot_ , so much that he actually does a full loop and starts feeling awkward about the conversation once again.

“I’d like to meet her,” Derek offers one night.

“Oh.” This is an outcome Stiles hadn’t expected. “Uh, sure.” And then he gets an idea: “William wanted to visit as well, so if he’s free you could both come over?”

William wanted no such thing, but he’d come if Stiles invited him, and Stiles can’t possibly be alone with Derek Hale in a house with the personality and musical tastes of a 90s teenager.

Derek looks amused. Maybe he caught the lie? In any case, Stiles is going to stand his ground. The walks are enough one-on-one time for him. He’s not starting a dinner trend on top of this.

“How does tomorrow sound?”

-

Stiles cannot possibly handle the long walk home with William on top of Derek, so he sends them packing to get dinner and meet him at home in a couple hours. That leaves him a half an hour to freak out in peace before he has to get going himself.

“Boy, how are you still single?” Mother Allegra asks him seriously, and Stiles drops his forehead on the counter with a thud.

He could explain that Derek Hale is his nemesis, and that William is just a flirt, but all he can do is groan into the wood.

Marie rubs his head affectionately. “Your life is so hard,” she mocks him.

Stiles sits up to glare at them both. “I’m leaving,” he says with a huff. “And if I don’t make it back tomorrow, you’ll both be sorry.”

They burst out laughing.

“Have fun!” Marie tells him.

“We’ll cover for you if you’re too sore tomorrow!”

Stiles very pointedly does not blush.

-

Stiles spends a full hour talking to Dorothy about the proper way to treat guests and how she shouldn’t embarrass Stiles, and of course as soon as he opens the door she starts blasting, “SO TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT WHAT YOU REALLY REALLY WANT I’LL TELL YOU WHAT I WANT WHAT I REALLY REALLY WANT,” and Stiles literally just throws his hands up. Why does he even try?

It’s not a disaster; mostly because William is there, and he seems to have a Teflon coating against awkwardness. He loves Dorothy. He loves the music. He loves the way the glasses wiggle, beckoning him to pour a drink. He loves it all.

Derek, as expected, is quieter.

He studies the house, the furniture, the walls for some reason, and stares out the window into the darkness of the backyard. He eats very little when offered food and declines the wine. The little paper bag he brought turns out to contain banana bread, which makes Stiles smile.

“I miss baking,” he tells Derek. “Hard to get anything right in a haunted oven.” It could also be the fact that the oven’s roughly thirty years old, but Stiles honestly believes Dorothy has something against his cooking.

“You bake?” William asks, eyes wide and excited. He has all the enthusiasm of a seven-year-old and none of the petulance.

“He’s very good,” Derek comments.

Stiles feels a jolt of surprise. Of course he’s very good but he never thought Derek would admit it, let alone volunteer the compliment unprompted.

“My place has a working oven,” William asserts with a wink. “If you’re ever in the mood, I never say no to cookies.”

“I bet you wouldn’t,” Stiles mumbles, giving him a _behave yourself_ look that’s actually become a valuable and much-used tool since meeting him.

“You know what I heard today?” William asks, looking back and forth between Stiles and Derek. “That you _both_ attended the season this year in Beacon Hills.”

Ugh, this again. Stiles is never escaping this stupid tradition. “We did indeed,” he says, rallying his spirits. “It was… an experience.”

“Ooh, tell me,” William begs. “Did everyone fall in love with Derek?”

Stiles huffs out a laugh.

“Did everyone fall in love with _you_?” William continues, warming up to his subject.

“Yup,” Stiles deadpans, “There was actually a line forming at my door.”

Derek doesn’t react at all, Stiles realizes, but William is giddy with excitement, nibbling on bits of banana bread he stole before Stiles could put some on a plate.

“I believe you,” he says. “Ava told a different story but then again, my dear cousin thinks Derek here hung the moon and pulls the sun up every morning.”

Stiles mentally rolls his eyes. He’d rather not speculate on Ava’s fantasies or what she might be saying about Stiles. “I’m sure she’s got it right.”

“Come on,” William cajoles, “What was Derek like, really?”

Stiles automatically finds Derek’s eyes at that. “Should I tell him and embarrass you terribly?”

Derek smirks. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“That’s a huge mistake,” Stiles tells him honestly, “but it’s your funeral.” He leans his head towards William and says, “The first time I saw him was at a ball, where he stood in a corner all night, scowling. He didn’t dance, didn’t talk to anyone but his friends, and when he did speak, he managed to insult pretty much every omega in the room.”

William is laughing his head off. “Now _that_ I believe.”

“I didn’t know anyone there,” Derek explains in the calmest voice.

“You’re right, it’s so hard to meet people at a party,” Stiles taunts him.

Derek stares at him, exhales audibly. “I’m not—the best at socializing, and I was already feeling on edge, being back after… everything.”

Stiles leans back on his seat, considering him. William seems to mirror his stance, taking in the scene.

“Why would a respected alpha, an architect, the leader of his pack… avoid socializing with his peers?”

“I’m not particularly skilled at making small talk with strangers,” Derek says. “Though I have to say, I didn’t see you mingling much beyond your friends either.”

“I was there under duress.”

“Very different situation then, I’m sure.” Derek’s smile is mocking. “And I bet the rules are different for you anyway.”

Stiles wonders for a moment why he even bothers with alphas. They’re like pompous little babies, living in their own little world. “Well, congratulations Derek, it only took you, what, thirty years? to realize the rules are indeed different for omegas.”

Derek narrows his eyes at him.

“You attend the season to show off,” Stiles explains. “I attend each event knowing I’ll be appraised and measured and most likely found wanting. But you’re right, I should be more accommodating. Nobody likes a dull omega.”

He gets up to put the banana bread away. They’re not hungry anymore anyway.

“You should let William take you out,” Stiles says, thinking the two of them keeping each other busy would at least let him breathe for a few days. “Help you practice.”

Derek smiles politely, gets up without answering, and wanders away.

“Come on, Derek,” William calls after him. “I can show you the wooorld.”

-

Stiles makes some tea while answering William’s million questions about Beacon Hills, and then makes his way to the backyard out of habit. Only to find Derek already there, examining the large tree in the dark.

Stiles hits the lights, which barely illuminate anything after years of disuse, and forgoes his regular seat on the ground to instead take one of the cast-iron chairs.

“Beautiful tree,” Derek comments, joining him.

Stiles beams with pride. “Red maple. It’s very old. I’d never actually seen one this tall.”

Its branches reach the very top of the roof and they’ve sort of enveloped the space outside, like a big red Muppet hugging the backyard. It sounds stupid when he says it out loud, but Derek doesn’t seem to hold it against him.

“Dorothy means no harm; is it really necessary to banish her?”

Stiles puts his teacup down on the wobbly coffee table. “Oh, nobody wants to banish her. Banishment is easy; she’s not powerful enough to put up a fight.”

A gust of wind blows Stiles’ shirt up his back. He smiles at Dorothy’s show of strength. That’s about all she can do against a banishment as well.

“We’re looking for a way to convince her to transition peacefully, as she should have done when she died,” the last part is said pointedly at the house, “and since it’s been so long and she’d need help getting there, we need to _find her_ —” he tries to think of a better way to describe it, “—find what she’s attached her spirit to, where she’s holding on, and help her let go.”

“I thought ghosts that stayed behind had unfinished business,” William inquires from the doorway.

“She was very young and died suddenly,” Stiles says. “Her _life_ was unfinished, in a way.”

With both chairs taken, William perches on a rock gracefully, wine glass in hand. “Any luck yet? Is it the piano? If I was a ghost, I’d definitely attach myself to a piano.”

“The coven’s been working on this for a while now. They ruled out pretty much everything, checked inside the walls, under floorboards for any keepsakes. Estelle thought she could be holding onto the actual house itself – the walls glow when you summon her – and that’s basically what Deaton figured I could help them with.”

“What, you communicate with houses?” William asks.

“Trees, actually.”

Derek leans forward, studying him the way he was studying the maple earlier. “You talk to trees?”

Stiles nods once, and then says, “Well, the chatty ones, anyway. Some of them just give off a feeling or a vibe, some are completely silent.”

Derek is still staring at him with an eerily steady gaze. “You talk to the Nemeton,” he realizes.

“Nothing gets by you,” Stiles tells him with a conspiratorial look.

“Wait,” William interrupts their little moment. “What’s that got to do with the house?”

Stiles runs his fingertips over the closest wall. “It’s a wooden house. They thought maybe there was some residual imprint that I could read, but the walls aren’t giving off anything. It happens very rarely; it was a long shot. And I think she’s gone deeper than the façade anyway.”

“Deeper where?”

“I think she’s in the foundation.”

-

“You’re full of surprises, Stilinski,” William says a while later, having let Stiles ramble on about how he wants to deliver a cleansing water right into the foundation with the maple’s help, to sort of shock Dorothy into releasing her grip on the house.

“Yeah, well,” Stiles says, slightly embarrassed that he jabbered at them for so long without much prompting. “We all have our talents. Such as they are.” He leans back and looks up at the red leaves, rustling gently in the wind. “Some people dance, some people sing, I talk trees into cooperating with my crazy ideas.”

“As well you should!” William approves of his life choices with unending zeal.

Derek’s tone is calmer. “Your talents are on the more useful and less self-serving side. Although I did also see you dance, so I know you’re selling yourself short there.”

It takes Stiles a moment to register the compliment, and he’s so thrown by it that he can’t bring himself to respond.

Derek stares at him, unfazed. “We tend to focus on what people show and exhibit when, much like your red friend here, the parts that make the difference are often hidden underneath.”

William is talking about dancing but it’s background noise; Stiles is too busy trying to decipher Derek to listen to him.

-

Stiles watches them leave through the glass pane of the door.

Pausing at the gate, William leans toward Derek and says something, one hand landing on his back like a gesture of support or a quarter of a bro hug.

Derek doesn’t react other than an acknowledging bob of his head.

Dorothy starts to play a soft instrumental ballad.

Stiles doesn’t bother asking her to turn it off.

-

The next day, Derek finds him at the park where he eats his lunch before work and walks him to the shop, claiming it’s on his way.

Stiles stops trying to make sense of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the ghost with the songs felt weirdly familiar as i was writing it but i couldn't find anything like it on my pinboard and ambersnake couldn't remember it... is this from a tv show or something? anybody? or am i just remembering my own idea? (this fic did scramble my brain a little...)


	7. Chapter 7

# 7

> _ “You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.” _

Stiles pitches his idea to Deaton and Estelle, not because he’s absolutely ready to implement it but because he’s ready to call it a day on what Marie has coined his merry little courting triangle.

They are neither merry, nor courting, not even really a triangle, but you try telling her that.

“It’s unusual, I know,” he says, inwardly wincing at the look on Estelle’s face. “But I think it’s worth a shot.”

“Is she ready?” Deaton asks.

Stiles nods enthusiastically, and then reins himself in, thinks better of making promises. “Well, it feels like she is. I’ve been talking to her about it since I came here, and she’s grown mellower lately, more receptive.”

It’s not like she could come out and say it, no one’s made a pop song about a ghost letting go of her former life as far as Stiles knows, but she feels ready to him and if Stiles has learned one thing since the Nemeton made its appearance in his head, it’s to trust his gut.

“And the… tree?” Estelle inquires.

The little pause there would hurt Stiles’ feelings if he wasn’t too sleepless to be offended right now.

“Maple’s actually the easier part of this,” he explains. “It likes the house and has grown fond of Dorothy. It’s basically happy to help.” He wants to add that it’s come to love Stiles but that sounds a little like boasting—even though it’s the truth and Stiles is damn proud of it. “We’ve been mapping the foundation together and determining where the water should be delivered. Its roots already go almost all the way through. It’s not going to be too difficult to complete the missing sections.”

Estelle stares at him, face inscrutable, and just when Stiles is about to throw his hands up and apologize for taking their time, she turns to Deaton and says, “You’ve got a good one.”

Deaton smiles at her and offers Stiles a satisfied nod.

-

“Shouldn’t it be called a potion?” William asks, watching Stiles drink his millionth cup of coffee of the day. “And shouldn’t you be getting some sleep if you’re going to do this soon? You look like death.”

“Potion makes it sound like I’m brewing it in a cauldron over open fire, not marinating it in a slightly haunted bathtub.”

“I guess that explains why you smell like you haven’t showered in a week.”

Stiles throws a bundle of mugwort at his head, and then continues restocking the shelf.

“I showered this morning.” Or was it yesterday morning? Days have run into each other. “It’s the herbs I’ve been infusing the water with. They smell fine on their own, but the combination is just awful.”

And he’s using a lot of them too. He’d normally add salt for potency, but he had to omit that to avoid buildup in the maple’s roots. Deaton okayed it – more specifically, he said _hmm_ which Stiles is taking as _what a creative dude you are Stiles_ – but the way he’s chosen to do this is a little more complicated than adding eye of newt to a soup and boiling it under the full moon, so he’s a bit self-conscious about the process. His main ingredients are feelings, concepts, intentions—energy, Deaton says, but much like water not being the key, energy doesn’t seem like the point here to Stiles, it’s what you infuse it with that makes it work.

Part of him is worried that he’s got it wrong and it won’t take at all, but, well… they’ll see soon enough. He says as much to William.

“You’re eager to leave,” William observes. “It’s almost enough to give a guy a complex.”

Stiles rolls his eyes at him and then winces when the motion makes his brain rattle in his head. “Somehow I doubt you’ll cry yourself to sleep.”

William shrugs and shares an indulgent smile with him. “Derek’s sister has been pestering him to go back as well. You’ll both leave and I’ll have to make friends with the witches, who by the way are super mean to me.”

“I heard that,” Marie says from the backroom. “And you deserve it.”

William makes a face. He didn’t know Marie was there. “I love you though,” he calls towards the back.

“Keep it in your pants, kid.”

He turns to Stiles, solemn. “You see how they treat me here?”

“You’re not special,” Stiles informs him with a stage whisper, “They’re mean to everyone.”

William clutches his chest at Stiles calling him _not special_. “And the blows keep coming,” he laments.

“Ask Derek to play with you. I missed my friends, my dad, my bed.” Oh, his bed. Stiles would kill for an uninterrupted night of sleep in his own bed.

“I did ask him, are you not listening?” William follows him down the shelf, picking up and putting back items at random. “He misses his pack, his sister’s bitching at him, and Scott—you know Scott?”

Stiles snorts. “I do know Scott.”

“There’s a story there.”

“But you’re not hearing it.” There’s no way he’s getting into all that with William.

“Spoilsport.” William pouts. “Anyway, he doesn’t like leaving Scott alone apparently; I don’t know what that says about the dude.”

Stiles is getting a headache from rolling his eyes. “It probably says Derek needs to stop infantilizing him.”

“Oh, but you know how he is. He takes it all on his own shoulders, as if he’s the only one who can save the world. Or Scott, I guess. Which he apparently did just a couple months back, you probably know about that.”

William’s busy messing up Stiles’ incense display and misses the expression on his face. “What.”

“I heard it from Ava, so you know, take it with a grain of salt, but apparently Derek saved Scott from a very unsuitable match.”

Stiles is frozen with a candle in each hand. “Saved him.”

“Well, convinced him? Forbade him? I don’t know. Ava seemed to think Derek _tricked him_ into dropping the lady but that doesn’t sound very much like him, does it?”

It sounds exactly like Derek to Stiles. “Did she say why?”

William looks up, unfreezing Stiles; he goes back to restocking with a back so stiff it’s almost concrete.

“She said it was inappropriate. I assumed she meant money issues, you know how snobs avoid saying the word _money_ , but Derek doesn’t seem like the type to care about that, so probably not. Maybe there was some sort of scandal involving the family?”

“Maybe,” Stiles replies, feeling a wave of fury crash against his fatigue. It almost rocks him where he stands.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m…” Stiles rubs his burning eyes. He’s exhausted. He’s angry. He’s sad. He’s feeling lost and homesick and so weary from having to be on his guard all the time. “I’m tired,” he says because he can’t say all that and not be labeled a headcase. “I think I’m going to take off early.”

“I’ll walk you—”

“No,” Stiles says abruptly. “No. I’d rather walk alone, thank you.”

-

Stiles has a killer headache that won’t let him sleep and of course the doorbell that has never once rung since he’s been here decides today is the day.

And the door opens itself, because why not.

Derek Hale steps inside, all but stomps into the living room, and stops only when Stiles sits up on the couch and glares at him.

“Are you alright?” he asks, his words kind but the tone bizarrely forceful. “Marie said you weren’t feeling well.”

Entitled, Stiles thinks. That’s the word he’s looking for. Derek Hale always feels entitled to everything.

“I’m fine.”

“Good, I’m—glad to hear it.”

He takes the seat he preferred the last time he was there without invitation, but then gets up and walks to the window. His back is to Stiles for long moments while Stiles tries to come up with a neutral way to get rid of him; but then he turns back around sharply, and stares at Stiles with a strange intensity.

He looks out of breath, even though werewolves hardly ever are, and seems agitated.

“I’ve been struggling against this, trying to tamp it down, but it’s only getting worse.” His voice is loud, his tone commanding. “I have to confess to you that I love you. That I’m _desperately_ in love with you.”

Stiles’ head throbs. He stares at Derek, pales, feels faint, and chooses to stay silent.

Derek keeps going, taking his silence as encouragement. “Almost from the first moment I saw you at the ball, I’ve been overwhelmed with the need to be close to you. Your scent, your voice—they follow me everywhere. I look for you in every room… Even after I left, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You’re human, you’re associated with the Argent family, you’re—” He seems to gesture at Stiles’ _everything_. “— _Stiles Stilinski_ , and this goes against every plan, every rule, everything I promised myself, it is beyond rationalization, and yet I _cannot stop_.”

 _Oh, no,_ Stiles thinks. _Oh, no. Please stop._ But even as Derek’s words talk of hesitation, his demeanor projects certainty, confidence, entitlement—and he does not stop.

Stiles watches his face resolve itself into a determined glare, his shoulders square, his jaw sets firm, and it comes, like an oncoming train, screaming, devastating, unstoppable. “I will love none but you,” he claims, the traditional words of the proposal somehow the most unromantic thing Stiles has ever heard in his life, “if you’ll accept my hand, and my heart, and consent to be my only one.”

Stiles breathes. Waits for the world to make sense. Breathes again, in, out. It doesn’t work.

“You’re proposing,” he says, hearing himself from very far away. “To _me_.”

Derek acknowledges this with a nod, his head tilted in a way that seems to dare Stiles into... accepting him? Or rejecting him? Stiles can’t even tell what the point of any of this is.

“I suppose,” he says, his tone carefully, painfully civil, “an omega in my situation should feel grateful for any alpha’s consideration, let alone a Hale’s. And if I could feel grateful, I’d thank you for the offer. But I can’t.” He holds his head up carefully and doesn’t let the burning in his eyes turn to tears. “I never asked for any kind of attention from you and you seem to begrudge every inch of it you’re offering me. I certainly never meant to cause you any pain – didn’t even know I could, honestly – but since I’m clearly _unsuitable_ and the idea of being with me goes against everything you hold dear, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble getting over me soon.”

Derek’s eyes are fixed on his face and he appears staggered. He waits and visibly composes himself before speaking. “This is all you have to say?”

“I’m sorry I don’t have a speech prepared,” Stiles tells him. “You should’ve given me more warning if you wanted one.”

“You talk plenty in every other situation; I figure a rejection would merit at least as detailed an explanation as the reasoning behind your favorite Marvel movie.”

“You want details?” Stiles asks, his gut on fire. “Fine. Let’s talk about the details. What the hell kind of person are you wanting to tie yourself to, that he’d accept the man who orchestrated the heartbreak of his best friend?”

He pauses for effect; knows he won’t get an answer.

“Allison is like my sister; she’s the nicest, kindest person I’ve ever known. You watched her fall in love and then, as if she was your plaything, you just decided to pull the plug. Am I supposed to forget about it now? Pretend it never happened? Is this the version of me you’re proposing to?”

Derek looks infuriatingly self-assured, betraying his guilt and lack of remorse. Not that Stiles needed the confirmation; he knew all along. He never doubted it for a second.

“I have every reason in the world to despise you. Nothing could justify what you’ve done to Scott and Allison. Anyone with eyes could see how happy they were and in one moment, it was all over.” He pauses, considers; is there a point to even asking? “Did you trick Scott into dropping her or simply forbid it?” Does it even matter?

Derek doesn’t answer him, instead says with a sardonic half smile, “I’ve been kinder to him than to myself.”

“Would you like to hear any more details? Perhaps about when we first met? How you blew into town, slammed me into lockers, used me when you needed help, and then took off without a word, taking my best friend away from me, taking Melissa away, and – this is my favorite part – then you told Scott not to contact me again.”

“They’re my pack,” Derek says calmly, without a hint of regret.

“They were my family,” Stiles spits out. “And then you come back, insult me and my friends, look down your nose at pretty much everyone, and—I’m sorry, was I supposed to swoon? You strut around with those two witless clowns, spitting venom everywhere they go, but oh no, of course it’s all charming when you’re rich. I don’t know what part of your behavior was supposed to inspire affection, but from where I was standing? It all looked appalling.”

Stiles hasn’t even got up from the couch, and now he doesn’t know if he can. His knees feel weak. His legs are shaky.

“We could go even further back,” he ventures, “to when you courted another Argent and left behind a mess—one that’s somehow now spilling into my friends’ lives a decade later, but I suppose that’s a job for historians. I am not, even academically, interested in scrutinizing any more of your life than I already have to.”

A tense silence stretches between them, almost solid in its presence and gravity.

“And this is what you think of me,” Derek says, almost to himself, and then to Stiles, angrier, “Maybe it would’ve been fine if I could dance and smile and pretend to be delighted with everything, but I don’t have that kind of performance in me. A better man could’ve flattered you and teased you, and made you like him. But the fact is, I don’t feel like dancing when I’m in Beacon Hills. And I don’t enjoy the idea of being in love with a human. With someone who has ties to the Argent family. I can’t hide it. I can’t lie about it. I won’t let anyone make me feel ashamed of it when I know my reservations are perfectly justified.”

Stiles holds onto his composure by sheer force of will.

“I have no interest in your justifications. There was never any particular way you could’ve acted, anything you could’ve said that ever would’ve made me consider saying yes to your proposal. You are arrogant, selfish, and show zero concern for other people’s feelings. I could’ve told you yesterday, three months ago, or even when I was fourteen, that you’re the last man on earth that I’d ever be interested in.”

Derek nods sharply, a cold fury settled on his face. “I understand you perfectly.” He straightens up. “I apologize for taking so much of your time.”

He walks out.

The house stays eerily quiet.

-

Stiles doesn’t sleep, instead tortures himself with echoes of what he’s said and seen and felt. A kaleidoscope of Derek Hale’s facial expressions plays itself out when he closes his eyes. He comes down from the adrenaline high, only to get mad again and again when he thinks about Allison’s excitement, her heartbreak, her pain, and his mind helpfully overlays it with Derek’s self-satisfied, unapologetic stare.

Somewhere in there, he finds a moment to marvel at his receiving not one but two proposals in a matter of months, and how typical it is of his life that he should be made more and more miserable by each one.

He imagines calling Allison, or Lydia, or Isaac, but can’t find the words to tell them what happened.

Dorothy shuts the window when he shivers, and the teacups rattle a couple of times, summoning him; but other than that, she doesn’t bother him at all. There’s a peaceful silence in the house that Stiles is deeply grateful for.

His headache fades into a dull throb, and he opens his eyes to realize that he must’ve dozed off after all.

It’s still dark out. He checks his phone to see it’s 4 AM.

And he has an email.

-

_Don’t be alarmed at receiving this email; I have no intention of bothering you. What was said last night was said, and is done, as far as I’m concerned. I will not repeat any of those sentiments ever again or make you uncomfortable by mentioning the subject to you or anyone else._

_I asked Scott to get your email address for me from Allison, which I hope you won’t mind. I can assure you that I won’t contact you after this._

_I know you have no interest in knowing any more of my life than you already do, but you were right that my “mess” has spilled over into your and your friends’ lives, and even though I’ve so far kept the ugliest parts of the story to myself, perhaps it was done for the wrong reasons, and you, as an impartial person in the middle of all this, should be aware of at least some part of it, to protect yourself and those you love._

_And I suppose selfishly, I’d like to be known as less of a villain, even when it won’t make a difference in the end._

_I met Kate Argent the winter before my first season, when I was fifteen and she was twenty-four. She was a substitute teacher and zeroed in on me from the moment she set foot in my class. She flattered me, made me feel special, and manipulated me. We started a relationship in secret before I was presented for my first season, and then we began courting._

_My family wasn’t happy with me being with someone so much older, but they didn’t forbid it, and at that age, their disapproval only made me want it more. She convinced me that they were against her for being human and an alpha, and even though that was never an issue in my family, I somehow found myself believing it._

_Omegas are frail she coached me; I would be stronger with another alpha. We weren’t bond compatible, and she laughed it off when I mentioned us working on it._

_We were together for four months, during which she visited my house many times, learned our habits and rituals, the protections we had in place, the emergency precautions, and then, a week before my sixteenth birthday, she set fire to our house, killing almost everyone inside._

_I know you know the story, so I won’t go into details._

_I never had any proof that it was her, but I’d come to know her scent intimately and could smell it all over the perimeter. She left town the same day._

_I told the police of course, but I don’t know if they ever looked into it. I know a traumatized teenager’s hysterical accusations wouldn’t have meant much and I couldn’t bring myself to admit all the ways she’d taken advantage of me. I was ashamed of the part I played._

_Afterwards, I wanted to go after her, make her pay, but Laura made me swear I never would. She didn’t want us to lose any more than we already had. Now that Laura’s gone, and I’m the head of the pack, I feel it’s even more important that I hold myself to that promise, or I never would’ve let Kate Argent enter Beacon Hills unchallenged._

_I don’t know the particulars of the story Kate told you, and I have nothing but my word against hers, no one to corroborate my version of events, but this is the full story of my relationship with her._

_I never had any intention of interfering in Scott’s relationships and I didn’t, one way or the other, until I found out that Allison is an Argent. After that, yes, I did everything in my power to separate them. I still believe it to be a matter of life and death. Since you say you once considered Scott family, I’m hoping you’ll understand my need to protect him at all costs._

_If you say Allison is the kindest person you’ve ever met, I have to take your word for it. I do trust your judgment and you know your friend better than I do. That doesn’t mean I can take the chance and risk my pack again, especially when all I see is Kate when I look at her._

_I can’t defend myself against anything else you’ve said. Being in Beacon Hills puts me on edge, but the excuse makes me no less rude. I don’t trust humans which I suppose causes me to seem and act arrogant around them. I’m selfish, because I have very little left and want to keep what I do have safe. The fact that I’ve been struggling with an attraction I felt was dangerous might’ve made me more irritable than I normally would’ve been, but like I said, it changes nothing. I_ am _sorry about Ava and Amelia’s behavior; their mother asked me to allow them to accompany us to Beacon Hills, and since I owe a great deal to her and their pack, I didn’t think twice about it. I do regret they made you and your friends uncomfortable._

_Lastly, on taking Scott and Melissa away from you, I have to confirm your conclusions. I never gave it a second thought. They were the only pack I had left, and I thought only of their wellbeing, never of who may’ve been left behind. Do with that information as you will._

_DEREK HALE_

-

Stiles reads the email, eats breakfast, reads the email, showers, and then reads the email again.

His anger has subsided, leaving him soggy and heavy like a doused flame. But while his emotions may be on the fritz, his brain is thankfully still in working order. Seeing puzzles everywhere and being suspicious of everyone are Stiles’ specialties, and this one appears to be an open-and-shut case.

He believes Derek.

He spends the morning on his laptop, hacking into the police database and reading everything they have on record for the Hale Fire case, and it’s all there in black and white: Derek accused Kate of arson and premeditated murder. Kate had an alibi and claimed Derek was only mad at her for dumping him.

Argents are a respected family. Stiles can see how the accusation didn’t go anywhere without further proof, which actually makes him mad at his dad’s predecessor for not looking into it more. There must’ve been something. Accomplices, at the very least. They couldn’t have possibly believed it was an accident. Werewolves don’t die in accidental fires. But that’s what the file says.

Stiles wonders if he should tell his dad. He swipes his contact list back and forth, tempted to call, but also knowing it isn’t his place. Derek says in the email that he feels he should be sharing it with Stiles but doesn’t say anything about Stiles sharing it with other people. It’s personal. Deeply, deeply personal.

He doesn’t call his father in the end. And he doesn’t call Allison. He’ll have to tell her some of it, that’s what he assumes Derek meant by _keeping his loved ones safe_ , but it’s not something you tell someone over a phone – _your family are murderers, surprise!_ – but a more delicate subject requiring careful planning and copious amounts of alcohol.

He does contact one person, and that person, surprisingly, is Derek Hale.

 _Allison doesn’t know about any of this,_ he writes in a reply, and after a forty-five-minute deliberation, sends only that, without any embellishments.

He goes to the Divine for one of his last shifts, but his mind doesn’t leave the case, the email, the possibilities.

He is not good at letting things go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the phrase "none but you" is borrowed from a different austen story, persuasion.
> 
> this is all i have edited so far and i don't know if i'm going to be able to work on it tomorrow. will try and post the whole thing by the end of the week though.


	8. Chapter 8

# 8

> _ “There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just enough to make one good sort of man; and of late it has been shifting about pretty much. For my part, I am inclined to believe it all Darcy’s; but you shall do as you choose.” _

They say goodbye to Dorothy on a warm fall day, and weeks and weeks of Stiles’ work come to fruition in an incredibly satisfying way as the whole thing goes off without a hitch.

He’s been focusing on this house and this tree for so long that he hardly needs to close his eyes before it’s all there in his mind’s eye, water traveling down the roots like a river with a million tiny offshoots, the roots hugging the foundation of the house, not as perfectly as he’d sketched in his head but real and beautifully efficient, and then it’s delivered and the whole thing glows gold. Stiles almost can’t breathe.

Dorothy is ready, as he knew she would be. They’ve been having long, though somewhat one-sided talks about what might come next, where she might go, what an adventure it would be to move on, when all she had left with on earth was a house that no longer belonged to her. It’s the logical thing to do and Dorothy’s spirit hasn’t been stuck so long to have lost its capacity for reason.

She lets go, easily and quickly, and Stiles can sense her exhilaration at being free. She’s comfortably familiar to him by now, having spent day after day under the same roof as her. They’re so well-connected that Stiles is almost riding along as she goes. The floating sensation of being without a tether, the long moment she hovers above him, Stiles experiences it all almost firsthand; a burst of affection, a hint of laughter, faint feel of fingertips on his cheek… and in a rush of warmth she’s gone.

Stiles opens his eyes on an exhale. A couple of tears fall down his lashes.

The maple is strong and reassuring at his back, so he shuts his eyes again and lets himself linger.

-

The last time Stiles walks into the Divine, he finds himself getting nostalgic and immediately rolls his eyes at his own ridiculousness. It’s not like he’s never coming back. It’s not like the shop is that far away from home.

It’s a going away party that lasts all day, people stopping by, hugs all around. William appears a little timid when he shows up and asks if they’re okay. Stiles rolls his eyes at him too. Who could ever not be okay with William? They hug and Stiles finds himself holding tight, a surefire sign of impending friendship, which doesn’t seem to escape William because afterwards his smile is expressive and bright and stays on his face for a long time.

“I value your friendship a lot. I hope you know that,” he says as they say goodbye. “And whatever idiotic thing Derek did, I know he values you just as much.”

_Probably not anymore,_ Stiles thinks but says, “He didn’t do anything stupid,” instead.

“Oh, now, see, that doesn’t sound like him at all.”

Stiles wonders what it would’ve been like if he’d said yes to Derek’s proposal, walked into the shop today an engaged man, was talking to William as a member of the Hale Pack… but he can’t really picture any of it. He never could, no matter who the suitor in his imagination may be, which probably explains his reactions to both proposals he’s been (un)lucky enough to receive.

He’d like to think he needs more depth to a relationship before he can imagine turning his world upside down for it but it’s also possible that he’s just defective, missing a romance gene or something.

Either way, he’s glad to be going home a single man, back to his dad, his friends, and his comfortable routine. The talks that await him, with Allison especially, are going to be difficult and painful, but all in all, it should be a walk in the park compared to this last week in San Diego.

-

“You’re not telling us something,” Lydia states with narrowed eyes.

“I’m not telling you _many_ things,” Stiles offers freely. “Like, there was this one shop in San Diego that made the best banana nut muffins and I actually got them to give me the recipe—not exact quantities but I’m gonna figure it out. I’m not telling people because I want to see the surprise in everyone’s faces when I bake it and you all die from the gorgeousness. I also read a book called _The Sex Lives of Cannibals,_ but I didn’t think any of you would appreciate it, so I was keeping that to myself.”

Stiles expects Lydia to give him her patented _why do we even let you talk_ look, but apparently, he’s done this to her one too many times now and she’s not buying.

They sit in silence in the glow of the campfire, sipping their mulled wines, ignoring Allison and Isaac laughing at Danny’s story, until Stiles breaks, as Lydia no doubt knew he would.

“Not yet,” he tells her. “I need a bit more time.”

He’s been home all of three days and hasn’t had enough time to get his head on straight, let alone research and investigate and make sure he has all the facts before he can approach Allison. He watches Allison throw her head back and laugh across the fire and feels the weight of the world on his chest. He does not want to do this to her. But he has to.

“Scott?” Lydia asks softly.

Stiles nods, but his face must tell a different story.

“More?” Lydia probes, whispering.

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes out. “Bad.”

“Bad as in…”

Stiles shakes his head. “I’ll tell you soon. Just give me a couple more days, okay?”

“Okay.” Lydia agrees, eyebrows drawn together. Now she’s worried as well. Wonderful.

She snuggles close, takes his hand in hers. Her nails are painted blood red and her ring is sparkling in the firelight. “You’re not alone, you know.”

Stiles kisses her hair and thanks every god there ever was for that fact. He’s not alone.

As long as he has his people, everything _will_ be okay.

-

When the time comes, it’s Allison and Lydia in Stiles’ living room, in their pajamas, on one of the rare nights when his dad is working the night shift.

Pajama party is their excuse, because no, not all of this is going to be shared with everyone, and Lydia is there because Allison might need her for support right now, and Stiles might need her for support _after_.

Stiles is pacing; he can’t stay still.

“Just say it,” Lydia says, some banshee slipping into her tone.

Stiles flails a little and sneers at her in protest – this isn’t exactly easy – but then closes his eyes and starts with, “Derek proposed.”

“He did what!” Allison yells, just as Lydia jumps to her feet with excitement, “I knew it!”

Stiles stands in the middle of the room with hands on his hips, eyes narrowed. “You knew nothing!”

Lydia sits back down, looking satisfied. “I _so_ knew it!”

“You _so_ did not!”

Allison interrupts their super mature argument, “Can we just—hear the story?”

“Right.” Stiles points at her in agreement and goes back to his pacing. “He came over one afternoon, acted all—” He tries to mime _entitled angry eyebrow man_ but judging by the look on their faces it doesn’t come across. “—said he loved me and proposed and… look, that’s not the point.”

“How can that not be the point?” Allison yells at him.

“How did you respond?” Lydia asks suspiciously.

“I said no,” Stiles answers, surprised that they even have to ask. “Of course I said no.” He thinks back to what he said, and adds, “I said a lot more than no, actually. I—accused him of breaking Allison and Scott up, which I was right about by the way, and I may have called him names, but that part’s not why we’re here. The important bit is, I mentioned Kate and said something about how their mess was still ruining people’s lives.”

Allison’s head shoots up at the mention of Kate; Lydia is groaning into a pillow.

“What did he say?” Allison asks, looking a little like she’s dreading the answer. She has no idea.

Stiles waves his hands around. “He didn’t deny anything, and we just basically yelled at each other. And then he was like _fuck you Stiles_ and he left.”

Lydia is giving him an exasperated look. It does not bode well for the rest of the night that she’s already irritated. “He said _fuck you Stiles_?”

“It was implied,” Stiles insists. “But anyway. That night he sent me an email explaining a few things.”

Lydia makes gimme gestures at his phone.

Stiles shakes his head. He doesn’t feel comfortable handing the whole thing over to someone. It’s private. Derek probably wouldn’t like it. Stiles doesn’t even like it.

“He says the Hale Fire wasn’t an accident.”

-

With his story over, Stiles deflates and takes a seat on the couch.

Now, Allison’s pacing.

“She told us he abandoned her,” Stiles says, going over the cold hard facts. “Her statement at the time says she dumped him.”

“So, she lied,” Allison says. “That doesn’t make someone a murderer.”

“No,” Stiles agrees. “But there was definitely a murder. And a cover up. The story makes no sense. A whole family of werewolves somehow got locked in their own home in the middle of the day, a fire started, and none of them made it out. It’s a three-story building with twenty-nine windows and four doors – yes, I counted – and somehow, they all die in the basement. Which, by the way, connects to an old storm cellar through a tunnel and yet, no one thinks to go that way.”

“Mountain ash,” Lydia mumbles. “That’s murder alright.”

Allison has a hand over her mouth.

“The insurance investigator writes a ten-page report that basically says nothing at all. He concludes it was an electrical malfunction, case closed. He mentions no irregularities, no suspicions, nothing.” Stiles rifles through his printouts for the right batch, puts it on the coffee table. Allison winces at the crime scene pictures. They’re messy. Lydia leans in for a closer look. “This is him. He was killed five years later.”

“By Peter Hale,” Lydia says absently, turning the pages to see more.

“He knew,” Allison realizes.

“Yup.” Stiles nods. “He knew about two more accomplices at least.” He puts the other printouts on the coffee table, next to the one Lydia’s still reading. “It seemed like unconnected killings at the time, everyone thought he was attacking at random, but these two have priors going back years before the fire, and they both served time for arson.”

“He didn’t go after Kate, though,” Allison reasons. “If she’d done it—”

“She wasn’t in town,” Stiles says. “Peter may’ve been killed before he could get to her.”

Allison’s lips are bitten red. “I don’t… I don’t know.” She shakes her head, some of her hair coming loose from the braid. “She’s my aunt but she’s no angel. She may have lied, she may’ve had an inappropriate relationship, that much I can see her doing. But the rest of it…”

“It’s surreal,” Lydia says.

“Yeah,” Allison breathes.

“But I believe him,” Stiles tells them.

-

Ice cream, cuddling, and midnight margaritas are on the menu that night, though all the comforts in the world wouldn’t be enough to lift the heavy black veil they have over their lives now.

Allison goes through all the emotions. She’s happy that Scott didn’t actually change his mind about her; sad that he can’t possibly date an Argent now. She’s all kinds of suspicious of her aunt, but desperate to prove her innocence at the same time. She thinks Derek must’ve been incredibly disappointed by Stiles’ reaction to his proposal but thinks him very wrong to have gone ahead with it when he wouldn’t allow Scott to even date her.

Stiles flat out refuses to empathize with Derek Hale. He will not do it; he won’t have any of his friends do it. Empathy is banned as far as he’s concerned.

They talk in circles through the night, about what to investigate, who to tell, who to ask… and they don’t agree on a lot of it. But one thing is non-negotiable to Allison:

“I have to see it. I have to look her in the eye and see what it says for myself.”

-

“Oh, you poor, poor thing,” Kate coos, running a hand up Stiles’ arm.

Stiles shivers.

Kate, very likely making the wrong assumption about his reaction, slides closer.

It’s January 7th and they’re at Allison’s birthday party. All her family’s there, which is a rare occurrence these days and exactly why they’re hijacking the happy occasion for a less-than-happy interrogation.

They spent months talking strategy on this and Allison has set Stiles up perfectly to talk to a drunk Kate Argent, conveniently dropping the fact that Stiles has crossed paths with Derek Hale in San Diego and then making herself scarce, but, as always, any plan Stiles makes disappears in a flurry of improvisation and flailing as soon as he makes contact.

No matter, the gist of it is basically tattooed on his soul by now and if he gets too off topic, Allison or Lydia would no doubt interfere.

They both agreed to watch from afar, so long as they could hear everything, so to make matters even crazier, Stiles is wearing a wire right now.

This is either going to end in tears or utter humiliation of Stiles. Hard to tell at this point.

“I can’t believe you had to spend weeks putting up with Derek Hale. He’s even worse now than he used to be, or so I hear.”

Stiles takes the last step towards the bar and slips onto a stool. Kate takes the one next to his. At least this way there’s some space between the two of them.

“Oh, he’s not that bad,” he says with a smile. He plays with the label on his beer bottle, hopefully in a bashful way and not betraying his nervousness.

“Don’t tell me he’s learned how to communicate like a real person!” Kate crows.

“He communicates when necessary, I think.”

Kate gives him a considering look. “Oh, no, kid. Tell me you didn’t drink the Kool-Aid.”

Stiles ducks his head and scratches his chin. “Let’s just say he’s less evil and more awkward when you get to know him.”

“Oh, I see.” Kate seems to be enjoying herself. “He got to you, too. Look, I know he’s rich and not bad to look at, but it’s not worth it. Trust me.”

“No need to worry,” Stiles says. “My interest is purely intellectual.”

Kate almost chokes on her drink; she’s laughing so hard. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Stiles pretends to be amused. “I’m serious,” he says. “He mentioned some things about the fire that made me think, and I suppose, considering his behavior in that light I could understand him a bit better.”

Kate sobers up noticeably and Stiles thinks, _yes, this_. This reaction is what he was looking for. “What about the fire?”

Stiles wants to grab Allison and get out of there, because honestly, this is enough of a proof for him. The timbre of her voice, the sudden tightness of her shoulders… all the looseness and fun are gone out of Kate all of a sudden. Unfortunately, he can’t just walk away in the middle of the conversation. He has to see this through.

He’s been practicing this in his head for months, so his reactions are more measured than Kate’s, even though she’s clearly the better actor. “Oh, you know, he believes it was arson.” He’s gesturing with one hand and holding his beer with the other. He thinks it looks authentic. He hopes.

Kate orders another drink, and when she turns back to him, the tension is completely purged from her body. She smirks. “That old story again.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Well, I wasn’t here at the time,” she says, “but I heard that the investigation proved it wasn’t arson.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles is nodding. “That’s what I read as well, but it’s a little too convenient, don’t you think? Everyone dying in one room?”

Kate is studying him now, her gaze steady and deadly like a snake. Stiles imagines a less stubborn man would crumble. He stares back though, even dropping the act a little to let her see he knows.

He can’t help it. He was never going to be able to keep the clueless act up for long anyway.

“Ah,” Kate says. “That’s how it is.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Stiles says, his tone telling a completely different story.

“Well, Stiles, since you’re a budding detective, let me give you a little insight into the situation. Derek was the only one who knew the house well enough. He was the one with opportunity and means. He was conveniently out of the house during the fire. He’s now the richest man in Beacon Hills. I think that’s where you should be looking.”

“Motive?”

“Money,” Kate says with a shrug. “His family’s interference in his relationship? They made him break up with me, you know.”

“Right,” Stiles says, “that’s what you said, but I read that actually you dumped him. The day of the fire, in fact.”

Kate smirks. “Somebody got into daddy’s files,” she sing-songs. “That’s illegal you know.”

“Oh, no,” Stiles says emphatically. “I actually stumbled across Peter Hale’s research. He was very thorough.”

He did no such thing, of course, but there it is, he’s surprised her once again.

“I don’t know if we should be paying attention to a crazy man’s ramblings.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” he says. He got what he wanted, and he doesn’t want to push her enough to cause a scene. “Maybe it _was_ an accident, but it doesn’t hurt to look into a cold case now and again. Cop’s kid, you know. It’s in my blood.”

She doesn’t bother getting back into character. Her body language is that of a predator and the look she’s giving him is pure venom. “You’re still a civilian,” she warns him. “Daddy wouldn’t want you to get caught in the crossfire.”

“He knows I can take care of myself.”

“And Derek would hate to lose his favorite,” Kate says, savoring the words. “I heard about all the stares across ballrooms. You were the talk of the town last season.”

Stiles downs the last of his drink and gets up. “Great talking to you, Kate.”

“The pleasure was _all mine_.”

-

The rest of the night is a blur.

There’s cake and singing and dancing, but Stiles’ mind is occupied with the puzzle he’s piecing together. He’s been working on this from every angle for months. He roped Danny into helping, even worked himself back into Jordan’s good graces to get some old records. He hasn’t been able to do much legwork, but the research is thorough, he’s got as many crumbs as he can get after so many years, and they all seem to fit Derek’s story.

And tonight’s little conversation surely must’ve convinced Allison. It certainly convinced Stiles that Kate Argent is the devil. She lies and manipulates like breathing. It’s pathological.

Put them all together though, and they don’t prove anything concrete. It’s not enough to reopen the case. Nowhere near enough for a conviction.

He needs more.

They meet up at Stiles’ after the party and Lydia confirms that Kate’s aura was screaming death and decay as they talked. She watched from across the bar with her head on Jackson’s shoulder, eyes almost closed but not really—not completely. Jackson didn’t even know she had an earpiece. It was a perfect bit of espionage; Stiles would celebrate if he wasn’t so disgusted.

Allison shakes for what seems like hours.

“I have to move out,” she says. “I don’t know who knows what. I do trust my dad, but—” She bites her lip. “I don’t feel safe anymore.”

Lydia offers her home until they can find her someplace suitable, and Stiles offers to share his bed for the night.

“She’s got you in her sights now,” Lydia warns him. “I think you need to tell your dad.”

“I will,” Stiles promises her. “Just—I need to follow up on a couple more leads first.”

-

Winter months drag on and Stiles tries to enjoy the quiet of the streets, even if his mind is never silent. He spends time with his dad, with Rosie, with his friends, and most of all in the woods with the Nemeton, where he always finds it easiest to focus and solve problems. The feeling the Nemeton gives him is hard to describe, but the image it brings to Stiles’ mind is a serene lake with a pet monster swimming underneath the surface. He’s safe there, from anything and everything, and unless someone pokes the monster it’s peaceful and idyllic.

He never mentions his little investigation to Deaton, but he knows the man can tell something isn’t right. When he hints, Stiles hints back saying he may need to brush up on his protection wards. He finds a book on apotropaic magic waiting for him the next day, and they just start working on it, no questions asked.

Allison finds a small apartment above an apothecary in the town center and moves out of her dad’s home. Jackson starts interning at a law firm in Boston. Danny dates a beta and makes a face when asked how it’s going—but keeps on dating him anyway. Isaac finds his class load a little light this year, so he gets himself a third job, staging houses for one of the local real estate agents.

His dad gets a cold he can’t shake for a week, losing his fast-food privileges for the rest of the year. It snows for two days and Ms. Fiona at dispatch falls and breaks her leg. Stiles covers for her until she’s off the painkillers and back at her job. She knits him a scarf to thank him. It’s got a little fox head on one end, a tail on the other.

Through everything, Stiles keeps researching.

When April rolls around and the birds return, everything sprouting fresh and joyful and signaling new beginnings, Stiles finds himself hopeful once again and less anxious. Looking back, it’s exactly when he lets his guard down, but there was never any point to stressing himself sick over events so completely out of his control anyway.

Things happen. Sometimes for a reason, sometimes beautifully random. And most times, like in this particular case, annoyingly unavoidable.

Some things are inescapable, like the Hales’ return to Beacon Hills.

-

“I hear the Hales are back!” Heather sings, taking a breather from dancing to nudge Stiles playfully over on the bench and take a seat next to him.

“It’s your wedding, woman,” Stiles admonishes her. “Take a gossip break for the day at least.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” She looks relaxed and beautiful in her simple cream wedding gown. Her hair is down in waves and there are little pearls dotting the sides where it’s pulled back from her face.

“I can’t believe you’re equating _fun_ with _Hales_ ,” he grumbles.

“The gentleman doth protest too much,” she says grinning around the rim of a champagne glass.

“The gentleman will go to his grave protesting.”

“Unclench, Stiles. Breathe a little. It’s a party. Come dance with me.”

Stiles spots Jordan watching the two of them, and wow, isn’t that the most awkward thing in the history of the universe. “I think your husband’s waiting for his turn.”

Heather turns around to give him a wink and continues pulling at Stiles’ hand. “He’ll get to dance with me for the rest of his life,” she reasons. “But if my calculations are correct, _you_ will be off the market before the year’s out.”

“Fine, fine, crazy person. I’ll dance with you.”

He twirls her out to the dance floor and lets the music move them. He’s always liked Heather. They grew up together, had sleepovers when they were kids, and were in fact each other’s first kiss. He thinks he must’ve met her before he even met Scott. She was kind of always there.

“You’re happy, right?”

Heather beams at him. “I’m happy,” she confirms. “Are you?”

“I’m content,” Stiles tells her honestly.

She rolls her eyes. “Content is boring, Stiles. I’ve never known you to be boring.”

“I can be grumpy if that’s gonna be less boring for you?”

“Oh, I know you can,” she assures him. “Since this is my day—”

“And Jordan’s, presumably?”

“Not so much, no,” she says seriously. “Since it’s _my day_ and you have to be nice to me, I’m going to give you a little advice and you’re going to thank me for it.”

“Amaze me,” Stiles says, smiling.

“Stop overthinking things.”

Yeah, that’s gonna happen. “Should I also stop breathing while I’m at it?”

She pinches him on the side. “Promise me!”

Stiles considers her earnest face and says, “I promise to remember your advice, how’s that?”

She thinks about it for a moment. “Acceptable, I guess.”

Jordan cuts in after a while and Stiles finds himself back at his table, with his dad and Isaac.

“You were right,” his dad tells him softly. They both know what he means.

Stiles shrugs. His overthinking is the official sponsor of this wedding, but Heather doesn’t need to know that—on many, _many_ , multiple levels.

“I’m glad they’re happy,” Stiles says and adds a blessing under his breath for a healthy and happy union.

He looks around the beautiful venue, romance dripping from every corner, twinkling lights, delicate food, fragrant flowers, and finds himself wishing he could be this happy, this easily.

Heather is the kind of person to say _you make your own happiness_ and actually mean it. Stiles wonders if he’s making his own misery.


	9. Chapter 9

# 9

> _ “Her astonishment, however, was extreme, and continually was she repeating, ‘Why is he so altered? From what can it proceed? It cannot be for me—it cannot be for my sake that his manners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a change as this. It is impossible that he should still love me.’” _

Stiles reads all the time.

He reads fiction and non-fiction; popular science, and folklore, and occult; sociology, and spirituality, and even parenting, which is more useful than you’d think for getting people to do what you want.

He reads everywhere, but his favorite place to read is the preserve, because there he has a captive audience, and as much as Stiles enjoys solitude, he’s at his best when he’s communicating in some way, with something.

(His dad says he used to have whole conversations with birds as a toddler. This was always inevitable.)

Not all trees enjoy listening to books, most of them don’t get it, some of them are silently amused by it, but the Nemeton is a big fan. When Stiles reads fiction, the Nemeton gets a kick out of sensing the steady stream of emotions from him. It would be touching that Stiles feeling happy makes it happy, but Stiles being sad or scared also makes the Nemeton happy in this context, so, not so much. When Stiles reads non-fiction, the Nemeton passes the time by giving a running commentary of _wrong, also wrong, so very wrong_ directly into his mind. It’s gentle and uses feelings more than words, and Stiles does appreciate knowing if something he reads isn’t quite accurate but _come on_. It’s got to be messing with Stiles at least some of the time. The whole species of humans cannot be that stupid… can they?

Today, they’re reading _The Nature of Code_ and Stiles cannot grasp – is absolutely refusing the accept – how the Nemeton, which is a tree, can be discussing fractals with him without even using words.

“You’re fucking with me,” he says. “I can’t prove it, but I know it. I’m going to look this up tonight, and when I prove that you’re full of shit, we’re going to be having words. You think because the concepts are big I’m gonna just take your word for it, but that is not how it works. I will figure it out. Maybe it’ll hurt my brain, maybe I’ll need Danny’s help with it, maybe, just maybe, I’ll brave calling Lydia. But I am _not_ letting this one go.”

The Nemeton is amused. It doesn’t care who Stiles asks. The thought of the others being involved in their discussion actually warms its… whatever it has for a heart. Roots? Anyway, it’s pretty fond of the gang and urges Stiles to bring them along while he’s at it.

Stiles huffs at the lack of reaction and is trying to find his place in the book when he feels someone watching him.

He looks up, and there’s a dog at the end of the clearing, staring at him from under the hazelnut tree. Stiles stares back. Strays always end up in the preserve but it’s only the really anti-social ones that actually stay there. Is it shy? Is it going to come closer or run away? Stiles waits it out. After a long pause, the dog takes a step forward and—it’s not a dog at all.

It’s a wolf.

Stiles’ heart picks up.

There are no wolves in California, and the only werewolves in town are the Hales.

The wolf approaches, cautious, and Stiles takes the time to study it. It’s big, has a thick black coat with a lighter, reddish colored underbelly, large enough paws to make Stiles wonder about the teeth, and a curious, intelligent face. It comes halfway towards him and then stops, sits low, head down as if settling there.

“Okay,” Stiles says, voice no higher than when he was talking to the Nemeton. “We’re reading a book,” he explains, showing the wolf the cover. “It’s about simulating natural systems with coding and mathematics, and the Nemeton seems to think—no,” he interrupts himself and shakes an accusing finger at the tree stump. “I’m not getting into this with you again.”

Then he finds where he left off and keeps reading.

By the time he’s finished the chapter, the wolf has moved unexpectedly closer and is actually staring at the book’s pages, almost like it’s reading. Stiles startles a little when he realizes he can feel its huffing breaths on his skin.

“Oh.” He puts down the book. “Hello.”

The wolf is even more beautiful up close. Its fur is streaked with silver around the eyes, and its eyes are—

_Familiar_.

Stiles smiles, makes a show of looking the wolf up and down, and says, “Well, this is one way to avoid an awkward conversation.”

The wolf huffs his agreement.

-

Stiles is a fan of ignoring problems until they just go away.

He can’t always subscribe to this method because some of his problems are the kind to cause death, mayhem, etc. but when it’s a problem that’s not going to bite anyone in the ass? He will ignore it. Which is why he ignores his almost daily meetups with Derek Hale in wolf form because—okay, Derek may actually have the teeth to bite someone in the ass but it’s, like, super unlikely at this point.

The Hales have been in town for over a month now, and Stiles has seen neither hide nor hair of them, not until Derek found him in the woods. He continues not seeing any of them (on two legs) for two more weeks, during which Derek becomes his regular reading buddy and walks him home afterwards, mirroring their daily walks to Dorothy’s back in October.

_It’s been over six months,_ Stiles counts in his head. A lot can change in six months. Strong emotions like fury and hatred can dull or even completely disappear. Annoyance can leave its place to understanding, maybe even kinship. Forgiveness can surface maybe; gratitude may appear.

Fondness. Appreciation. A weird sort of attachment.

One thing Stiles doesn’t know is what happens to attraction, but that one he leaves to time. He’s not sure he really wants to know anyway.

May arrives, bringing Lydia and Jackson back, and sending the town into a frenzy, every family and every establishment getting ready for the upcoming season. In fact, Stiles is meeting the guys today for their annual planning extravaganza and is just putting away his book to leave when Derek works his nose into his bag, pulling out the Tupperware full of muffins by the handle.

“That’s not for you,” Stiles says, shoving it back in. “If you wanna be a wolf, you’re gonna have to hunt for your breakfast. If you want muffins – and they’re _good_ muffins – I’m dropping off a batch of these every morning to Al’s Diner, you can just buy yours like everybody else.”

Derek gives him the puppy dog eyes.

Stiles narrows his back at him.

When it’s time to part ways he instinctively reaches toward the wolf and has to stop his hand from connecting. His coat is glorious, and Stiles gets the urge to touch him all the time now – it’s getting harder and harder to keep his hands to himself – but surely, touching a werewolf’s coat would almost be like touching the man’s skin?

Touching alphas is a loaded concept for an omega. Stiles errs on the side of caution and keeps his hands to himself.

-

Stiles loves history, has a knack for research, and a thoroughly inquisitive mind, so he has a comprehensive understanding of the bullshit they’ve been fed as omegas on the subject of touching.

When the idea of the omega season first came about, it was built on the tradition of harvest festivals and was a more communal and less elitist event. Dancing was encouraged, because skin-to-skin contact is the most reliable way of determining bond compatibility. Everyone danced regardless of social status, and they touched, and even though instantaneous bonds were rare, once two people felt the very real possibility of a bond, they hardly ever chose to back away from it.

But of course, this led to ‘unsuitable’ matches, and the rich and powerful chose to put a stop to it by spreading rumors of forced bonds and stolen omegas.

What followed was the ‘civilized’ version of the season and the period of gloves. Omegas and alphas wore gloves for generations, not allowed to touch unless officially courting, and that was only with the permission of the parents. One can’t force a bond, of course, and most of the time biology didn’t agree with the parents’ choice, which brought about the industry of bond counseling. Specialized doctors, shamans, therapists started working with couples to guide them towards a bond, and for the cases when that didn’t work, omegas and alphas started getting married, like betas, without bonds.

And then, of course, came the 90s movement, and bond and marriage equality was signed into law. The omega season opened up to everyone. Alphas and omegas were free to court and marry whoever they liked.

The gloves came off sometime after that, but the taboo remains to this day. Omegas are taught not to touch alphas, lest they be drawn into an unwanted bond—as if those spontaneous rom-com bonds are an everyday phenomenon. Alphas are taught to wait for omegas to make the first move. Most omegas just don’t.

Stiles doesn’t.

He knows, okay? He knows. But it’s ingrained. And he can’t even imagine what he’d do if he touched an alpha and felt that little spark for a bond. Would he feel pressured to pursue it? Would he be summarily rejected? The idea is a bit too much for him to handle. So, he just… doesn’t do it.

He touches Allison and Lydia, because they’re best friends and he knows nothing’s going to change that. He touched William on the last day, when he decided for sure to be his friend and not anything more.

He never touched Jordan.

If he’d known one day he’d miss the opportunity of petting the softest looking wolf in the world, he might’ve chosen differently, trained himself out of his pattern perhaps, but as things stand, Stiles has always been very careful not to touch Derek and…

Today is probably not the day to start.

-

At first glance, the meeting at Lydia’s appears much like the previous year’s.

Danny’s fiddling with his laptop, Jackson is lounging on a new loveseat, Isaac is carrying in two large platters of mini sandwiches, as Allison and Lydia are admiring the new tiles on the fireplace. The food is plentiful, bickering seems mandatory and the huge ass whiteboard once again looms over their heads. Stiles would groan at the sight, but he’s determined to be a positive person this morning. He will say _no, no,_ and _hell no_ to any plan he doesn’t agree with, but he’ll do it in a positive way.

Lydia comes to stand in front of them, at the designated stage area, and clears her throat. She’s wearing high heels again. Stiles wonders if she has trouble reaching the top of the board.

“We’re here for another season,” she begins. “And since last year’s was—”

“—a clusterfuck,” Isaac inserts helpfully.

“—less than optimal,” Lydia chooses to continue, “we’re doing things a little differently this time around.”

She turns the board over, revealing yet another painstakingly drawn March Madness bracket. Before Stiles can throw himself off the couch though, she points out that the seeds are not alphas this year, but events.

“Huh.”

Lydia grins at their surprise. She does enjoy putting on a show. “Our theme this year is going to be…” She starts writing at the top of the board in big block letters: LEAVE THEM WANTING

Stiles grins at her, shaking his head in wonder and happiness, and thinks he can’t possibly love her more.

“We’ll decide today which events to attend, and then have bimonthly meetings to reevaluate.” She looks to Stiles for approval, then meets Isaac’s eyes, and then Danny’s. “We are not desperate,” she tells them with an assured tone. “We’re the aspiration. We won’t chase. We will grace them with our presence and leave them wanting more.”

She sounds like a boss, but the way she wipes her palms against her skirt betrays her nervousness. The way Lydia cares about her friends _is_ aspirational. Stiles finds that once again he’ll follow her anywhere, clusterfucks or no clusterfucks. She’s worth it.

Clearing her throat again, Lydia opens the floor to discussion.

For a moment, nobody says anything, but then:

“Which party had the mini quiches?” Stiles asks, raising his hand. “I’m voting for that one.”

“Oooh, the basket auction one,” Allison adds, nudging Stiles on the thigh. “We had great muffins that day.”

“Is nobody feeding you guys when we’re not home?” Jackson asks, exasperated.

“We are severely neglected,” Isaac tells him, munching on a sandwich. “You need to stop abandoning your kids.”

-

Al’s Diner is a Beacon Hills landmark.

It’s been at the same corner spot since the early 60s, occupying a two-story brick building across from the church, with a red neon sign that never quite works right.

Stiles doesn’t remember ever meeting Al, but his daughter Lauren’s been around all his life, and the granddaughter, Leah, is now slowly taking over the day to day running of the place. Stiles’ mom and dad actually had their first date there, and as a kid, it was his Sunday treat to get a banana split from Al’s, while his parents drank their coffees and basically greeted half the town in under forty minutes. They always sat at the counter, his mother preferred being as close to the source of the coffee as possible, and that’s where Stiles always gravitates toward now, out of habit or some weird Stilinski ritual.

Isaac has been working there since high school and he was the one to recommend Stiles when their bakery connection unexpectedly fell through a couple of years back. Stiles baked for them for a few weeks until they could hire someone full time, and ever since then he fills in for their baker whenever she needs to take time off.

He can’t really do it for long; he already cooks for too many people as it is, but a couple weeks a year is actually a nice challenge for him. He enjoys stretching his baking muscles.

Today he baked unhealthy amounts of cookies, a few trays of lemon bars, and even more banana nut muffins than he made yesterday, because he was right and everyone agrees they’re gorgeous. Now he’s enjoying his well-earned free coffee with a grilled cheese sandwich as he watches Isaac straighten the trays in the display cabinet.

It’s a nice, warm day, and Stiles is in a good mood.

And then, like a wave over his beach blanket, the Hales arrive.

Isaac sees them first and he freezes in surprise, only for a second, but it’s enough to make Stiles turn to look.

It’s Derek, and Scott, and a girl Stiles never met, no doubt the younger Hale, with those eyebrows. He hates that his heart trips over itself at the sight and berates his innards for the unnecessary cacophony. He and Derek already made peace, sort of. Why would he be nervous to run into him now?

He resolves to act natural, takes a sip of his lukewarm coffee and immediately spills some on his shirt.

Which actually is natural for him, so. Technically not a failure.

He wipes at the shirt and then gives it up for a lost cause and takes off his outer layer—only to realize that his t-shirt underneath is also stained. He sighs and considers taking _that_ off as well for a second, because surely that’s what this day needs, Stiles half naked in the diner with Derek Hale. Like something out of a nightmare.

“Hey,” Derek says, interrupting his coffee dance. “You need help with that?”

And that leads to an image of Derek helping him out of his shirt and yeah. No. He doesn’t need help with that, thank you very much.

Stiles sighs down at his shirt, then meets Derek’s eyes. “No, no, it’s okay,” he says, and then belatedly adds, “Hi.”

Derek takes the seat next to his. Stiles notices Scott and the other Hale already seated at a booth.

“I came to buy a muffin,” Derek says, giving Stiles a sideways look.

Stiles bites back a smile. “The squirrels didn’t cut it then, I take it?”

“Squirrel’s more of a dinner thing,” Derek informs him.

Stiles nods. “Makes sense.”

He calls Isaac over from where he’s actually following the two of them like a tennis match, and gestures for Derek to order. He orders three of Stiles’ muffins with one tea and two coffees.

When he gets up, he lingers. “Would you like to join us?”

Stiles gapes a little, he certainly didn’t expect that and decides to respectfully decline because Derek probably doesn’t mean it at all, he’s only being polite.

But then Derek adds, leaning a hair closer, “I’d like to introduce you to my sister, if you have a couple minutes?”

That, Stiles didn’t see coming at all. He blinks, and then nods, because that would be super rude to say no to. And—he doesn’t want to say no to it, he realizes with surprise. He’d genuinely love to meet Derek’s sister. Huh. Isn’t that a kick in the teeth.

Derek looks pleased and turns to lead the way to their booth.

Isaac, for his part, looks seriously confused, which actually makes two of them. He gives Stiles a questioning look, mouths _what_ at him, and almost misses his stool when he tries to sit. Stiles shrugs. Damned if he knows.

He has lost all control of the situation.

-

“So, Derek Hale is being nice now,” Isaac announces during movie night the very next day.

Stiles feels multiple heads turn his way, but he knew this was bound to come up sooner or later, so he doesn’t react at all. He’s busy eating his popcorn and scrolling through movies on the TV.

The silence stretches until he snaps. “Why are you all looking at me?”

“I wonder,” Lydia says with a grin, enjoying every word, “what brought on this change.”

“How should _I_ know?”

Stiles never told anyone about the wolf in the woods. It never came up, and anyway, it felt private. He refuses to examine why so many things involving Derek Hale feel too private to share when he used to share absolutely everything with his friends. These things happen, probably. Just because it never happened to Stiles before doesn’t mean it’s something special now.

“I hear you met his sister,” Allison says meaningfully.

Oh, good, so they’re all talking about this behind his back now. That’s exactly what Stiles needs in his life, busybodies teaming up to better torment him.

“Yeah, you guys would love her.” Cora Hale is twenty, a dancer, and tough as nails. “She’s way more personable than her brother and actually funny. I honestly didn’t know Hales could joke.”

“They sure can flirt,” Isaac mumbles into his soda.

Stiles kicks him. They’re sitting close enough, and Stiles has two size eleven feet he’s not afraid to use.

“Oh-ho-ho! There was flirting?” Now Jackson’s sitting up. Great, that’s just perfect. More people interested in his business.

He misses the days when he had no business to be interested in. Not that he’s got something going on now. It’s all lies and slander.

“There was no flirting. There was an oddly polite conversation and muffins, and that’s it.”

Isaac mouths, “FLIRTING,” at Jackson with emphatically raised eyebrows. Stiles kicks him again.

“Your muffins bring all the boys to the yard,” Danny says, eyes still on the TV.

Stiles shrugs. “Can’t be helped. My muffins are a triumph.”

“Ugh, stop saying muffins,” Allison moans, throwing popcorn at them. “It’s starting to sound dirty.”

“Speaking of mu— _baked goods_ ,” Stiles course corrects at the last second. “I’m supposed to get up before dawn to bake; can we just choose a movie already?”

As they bicker over the latest Tom Cruise action flick, Stiles once again finds himself thinking about muffins.

Banana nut muffins, to be precise. The ones the Hales ordered and devoured, not a crumb left behind.

The ones over which Derek praised his baking, talking him up to his sister.

The ones Scott ordered more of, to go, because he has a bottomless well for a stomach apparently. Is Melissa going to see any of those? Stiles doubts it.

The ones Cora tasted, face inscrutable, and chased it with a completely unwarranted once-over of Stiles, before holding his gaze for a moment and offering him an approving nod.

They’re just muffins, of course.

Stiles is not reading into muffins.

-

After the movie, Stiles drives Allison home.

“So,” she says, “last year Derek acted like he hated you but was actually in love with you. What are we supposed to think now that he’s acting like he likes you?”

That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it.

“He’s being polite,” Stiles says. “It’s really not something to read into.” It’s what he’s been telling himself, not that he’s listening.

“Are we sure about that? Because—”

“Alphas don’t propose twice,” Stiles repeats the popular phrase, turning his head to meet Allison’s eyes for a second. “Right?”

Her voice drops an octave, thoughtful, “Yeah.”

It’s yet another infernal social rule governing their love lives. It both forbids alphas from aggressively pursuing omegas and steers omegas towards acceptance rather than rejection when they’re unsure. Stiles never actually heard of it becoming an issue; people don’t propose impulsively, without knowing the probable outcome. (Except for his suitors, apparently.) So a second proposal is not something much discussed.

And it’s not an issue now, because—he already gave his answer, didn’t he.

“You like him though,” Allison says, a statement of fact.

Stiles doesn’t know how to respond. ‘Yes’ doesn’t sound like the right answer; but neither does ‘no’. He doesn’t say anything in the end. It doesn’t seem like the time to be dissecting his convoluted and many pronged thoughts regarding Derek Hale.

Allison gives him a big smile before getting off, squeezing his hand. “Everything will work itself out,” she says. “I believe it.”

Stiles thinks, _maybe_.

Hopefully.

Stranger things have happened.

-

That night he’s woken up by his phone ringing around three AM. It’s Jackson on the line, with Lydia hyperventilating in the background.

Stiles knows what he’s going to say before he even speaks.

“Rosie died.” Jackson sounds groggy and somber; Stiles can see him in his mind’s eye, phone in one hand, the other rubbing Lydia’s back. “Meet us at Isaac’s.”

Stiles puts down the phone, takes a deep breath.

Everything’s suddenly so very much away from working out.


	10. Chapter 10

# 10

> _ “Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly checked by other considerations, and she soon felt that even her vanity was insufficient, when required to depend on his affection for her—for a woman who had already refused him—as able to overcome a sentiment so natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham.” _

The following week causes Stiles to realize that as prepared as he is to face any kind of supernatural crisis, the everyday ones still make him stumble.

He finds himself at the Nemeton after the funeral. Takes off his suit jacket and after a moment’s consideration sits on the ground. He should’ve changed before driving over here but it never even occurred to him. His mind’s been noisy, buzzing like a beehive.

Isaac insisted on doing everything himself, in an effort to keep busy or maybe because he felt he owed it to Rosie, so all Stiles could do – all _any_ of them could do – was hover and be there, a steadying presence at best, pestering annoyance at worst. He hopes he’s been of _some_ use, but with Isaac’s almost pathological politeness this week, it’s hard to say.

He’s been staring into space for ten minutes when he hears footsteps. Not the soft patter of paws but actual shoes. Derek appears exactly where Stiles expects him to. He pauses at the tree line, stares at Stiles, and then keeps coming as if he’s been given permission. Stiles has no idea what his face is saying at the moment, for all he knows he’s invited the man for coffee.

Coffee. It would’ve been good to have coffee.

“You alright?” Derek asks, kneeling on the ground facing Stiles.

He’s wearing nice jeans. They’re going to get grass stains now. Though that’s probably the least of a werewolf’s worries. Stiles finds himself wondering if he ever just transforms in his clothes, tearing them like in the movies. Probably not. That wouldn’t be practical, and a born wolf’s probably been taught better.

He realizes that he didn’t answer, but maybe that’s for the best.

“You’re not a wolf,” Stiles says inanely.

A small smile. It’s nice. “Not currently, no.”

He wonders. “Is it… _better_ when you’re a wolf? Easier?” Stiles would totally turn into a wolf right now if he could. Run around the woods. Chase rabbits until he’s breathless.

“Sometimes,” Derek says. “The wolf’s mind is simple. Sometimes it’s good to look at things through its eyes.”

That sounds helpful, actually. It reminds Stiles of Heather’s advice about overthinking. What would he do if he wasn’t overthinking right now? If he was a wolf?

 _Oh_.

Yeah. He can’t do _that_.

“That sounds kind of great actually,” he comments. “I wish I could turn into a cat or something. It’d be nice to sleep all day and have no worries.”

“What’s worrying you?”

Now, that’s a loaded question, isn’t it? “What _isn’t_ worrying me?” he replies with a sardonic smile. “I’m a worrier. It’s what I do. I overthink and over-worry and over-plan.”

“Okay,” Derek says, shifting in one graceful move to sit next to Stiles, his back against the stump. “What’s the worry for today?”

“Isaac’s grandmother died.”

“I heard,” Derek says. “I’m sorry.”

Stiles shakes his head. “She was 94. She lived a great life. It’s—” He chokes on the words – he’s not going to cry, no – gets it back under control. “It’s hard to lose her friendship but it wasn’t a surprise or anything.”

Derek waits him out. He has a really annoying amount of patience.

“It’s just—Isaac doesn’t have anyone else. And he can’t inherit her estate; it’s all going to some cousin in Redding. They didn’t even know her, but—” He snorts at the absurdity of the situation. It’s infuriating. “We’re not going to let him go into the system, obviously. We talked about this before, planned for it. Lydia and Jackson are ready to be his guardians, my dad volunteered, Allison’s dad also said he’d do it. He’s going to have to make a choice, and it’s going turn his whole life upside down. It’s…” He takes a deep breath. “It’s frustrating.”

They sit in silence, Stiles anxiously running his fingers through the grass. Sometimes it soothes him, and sometimes, like today, it does absolutely nothing. He shuts his eyes and centers himself. Once he got the hang of it, he never had trouble finding his core and harnessing his spark, but it’s different here, with the Nemeton’s power right under him. It almost feels like he’s at the center of the universe; his spark, the Nemeton’s power, perfectly aligned down to the last inch. His chest expands with a deep breath, the Nemeton pulses under him. When he opens his eyes, the grass under his hands is much thicker and now it’s dotted with wildflowers.

“That’s a nice trick,” Derek notes, his palms skimming the very tops of the poppies.

“Very useful,” Stiles tells him.

Derek hmms a non-committal sound. “Beautiful though.”

“It is.” A simple jolt of energy to encourage the sleeping flora to grow, not even noteworthy on this scale, but the result is always remarkably happy-making.

They don’t talk much but it’s not uncomfortable. Even though the idea of Derek often makes Stiles nervous, the reality of his presence is calming.

In the end, it’s his growling stomach that stops him from spending the whole day in that same position. Stiles moves to stand up, and Derek follows suit without a word. He opens his mouth to say goodbye – a formality since he knows Derek won’t let him walk alone – then thinks, what if he didn’t do that?

It’s not what a wolf would do, but then again, wolves don’t know about curly fries.

“You wanna get something to eat?”

Derek clearly wasn’t expecting that, but he recovers quickly. “Yeah,” he says, another small smile finding its way to his lips. “Yeah.”

-

Isaac takes another week; thinking, considering, and refusing to talk about it to anyone. Not yet, he simply says. None of them can really understand what he’s going through, so they’re very carefully not pushing, but at the same time, there’s a clock ticking. Bureaucracy waiting. A call has to be made.

When they finally set a date to talk it over with the guys, he appears at Stiles’ door the night before.

And he tells Stiles what he wants to do.

“Wha—uh… What?”

“It’s a legitimate offer,” Isaac says, sitting at Stiles’ kitchen counter and shredding a tissue into a million messy pieces. “We talked about it and… he suggested that I ask for your opinion.”

Stiles’ eyes are going to fall out of their sockets. Isaac said a thing, and then this other thing, and brain exploding emojis are circling Stiles’ head now.

“You—um… I didn’t know you wanted…”

Isaac shrugs, eyes downcast. “I didn’t but… it _is_ a good solution. Werewolf packs have their own hierarchies. There’s always an alpha. When the leader dies, the second takes their place. You never have to go through any of this—” He waves his arms around to indicate all the bullshit they’re currently facing. “—I’d always have an alpha in the eyes of the law, and I wouldn’t be some sort of a… hanger-on, I’d just be a part of the pack.” He looks at Stiles with serious intent and hope in his eyes. “I’d never have to get married if I didn’t want to. It would be my choice.”

The logical part of it, Stiles can’t argue with. It’s the emotional bit he’s having trouble swallowing.

“You’d have a new family,” Stiles says. “That’s… big.”

“Doesn’t mean I’d be giving up my current one,” Isaac tells him with a soft smile. “I asked, specifically.”

“And you like them? Because there’s no going back on this. You are not becoming a packless omega werewolf or _I swear_ I will kill you myself.”

Isaac shrugs. “I mean, I like them fine, not as much as you do probably but—”

Stiles grabs a banana from the bowl and chucks it at his head. “This is serious!”

That earns him a chuckle. “Your situation also seems pretty serious.”

What did Stiles do to deserve such asshole friends?

On second thought, don’t answer that.

“They’re good people,” Isaac says, looking to him for confirmation. “Right? I mean, we had that whole thing last year but—I know something happened after. You don’t seem to hate them anymore, and Derek’s all mellow now. He’s trying very hard. You have to give him points for that.”

He really is and it’s driving Stiles insane. What does it mean? What exactly is he trying to accomplish?

“I did wonder whether the offer was genuine or if he was trying to get in your good graces—”

“That’s ridiculous,” Stiles interrupts him.

“—but he does intend to settle down here and he already started expanding the pack.”

Stiles blinks at him in confusion.

“I thought you knew?” Isaac says. “He’s already accepted Boyd and Erica.”

-

Apparently, when the Hales disappeared in early spring, they weren’t simply avoiding Stiles or hiding in shame. They were welcoming new members to their pack.

Stiles did not see this coming. Though, knowing Erica for as long as he has, he really should have.

Every pack’s initiation process is different. The old-fashioned ones either trust in the bite and dive right in, or if they’re the cautious kind, employ a shaman to make sure it will take, that the new recruit’s mind will handle the change well enough. The more modern approach is taking a few weeks to prepare both sides through counselling and meditation, often facilitated by professionals. Stiles has trained a bit in that practice himself. It’s like couple’s therapy, paired with daily meditation and trust exercises. It’s intense, to say the least.

He wouldn’t have expected something so healthy from Derek entitlement-is-my-middle-name Hale.

But the man has changed, apparently.

Isaac appears more and more excited as he talks, and Stiles knows he’s already made up his mind. Stiles can’t even claim to think it’s a bad choice. It’s a solution. It’s freedom. After everything he’s been through, Isaac deserves to finally live his life the way he wants to, without this threat constantly hanging over his head. He also doesn’t seem to be looking for Stiles’ blessing. Only his friendship and support, which he obviously has and always will.

When he leaves and Stiles thinks back to their conversation, it occurs to him that it’s actually Derek who’s looking for Stiles’ blessing.

And that he may have given it without realizing.

-

Reactions vary to Isaac’s choice, but it’s Lydia’s scheming face that sticks with Stiles the longest. She couldn’t have planned this, but she’s sure supportive of it now. Allison is subdued, which is only to be expected, and Danny’s all for it, saying he has dibs on any new werewolves coming into town. Stiles wonders for a moment if he’d hit it off with William, but probably not. They’re a bit too alike in some respects.

Isaac takes some time off from his many jobs and starts the long process of his integration into the Hale Pack. He brings Erica with him to Lydia and Jackson’s place one day, to talk things over with the guys, and then invites them all to the Hale house, in case they’d like to be involved. Lydia happily volunteers and drags along Jackson and Danny with her. Allison and Stiles decide to sit it out.

The Hales have a therapist working with them, but this is possibly the most important thing Isaac will ever do, so Stiles asks Deaton to be involved, just to keep an eye on things, make sure it’s all done properly. Stiles would do it himself – he’s _itching_ to do it himself – but with everyone constantly telling him that this is his doing – how? seriously? – he’s hesitant to get involved at all. This is Isaac’s life, Isaac’s choice. Stiles doesn’t want to make it about himself.

He also stops going to the Nemeton. For a little while, he thinks. Until Isaac’s thing is done. He feels odd that he never told the guys about it, and now Derek’s gone and adopted one of his friends, possibly because of what Stiles said after the funeral. It’s just getting a bit complicated and Stiles doesn’t fully understand what’s happening. He doesn’t want his non-relationship with Derek Hale to affect Isaac in some way and possibly ruin this opportunity for him.

He worries about what Derek will think, but in the grand scheme of things Derek doesn’t come before Isaac for Stiles. A murky could-be-may-be relationship that logically cannot possibly go anywhere can’t compete with years of friendship.

He and Derek each have their packs, their priorities. Derek would understand that.

And Stiles’ place in all this is _away_.

So, stay away he does, and he keeps busy trying out new recipes, both with his baking and his magic.

Protection magic is proving trickier than Stiles ever thought possible. The intent part he’s got down, but the million and one little elements that define what constitutes a threat and how to protect against it are really unnecessarily complicated. Deaton always says that Stiles tends to invent more magic in any given subject than he’s learned, and it seems like this is also going to be one of those cases. It’s not that he thinks he knows better; the established way is just not a good fit for his spark.

Which is a fancy way of saying he can’t seem to make it work right.

Now he’s baking instead, because inventing magic requires a bit more concentration than he can spare at the moment. He wants to try his hand at banana bread once again, but he doesn’t have enough bananas, so he whips up a spicy carrot cake instead, sets the oven timer to thirty-five minutes, and takes a seat at the counter to continue reading his book.

It’s an interesting book but somehow this morning it’s not holding his attention at all. His mind keeps going back to the lack of bananas. He could go to the store. It’d take ten minutes tops. It makes more sense to wait for the cake though. You never know when a bake is going to go south. Although, Stiles has used this oven roughly a million times, and he knows the timings perfectly. He’d always prefer to check by eye as things cook but it’s not vital. He could go out right now. A little air would do him good.

He gets up, puts on his shoes, and then wonders why he’d ever go now. There’ll still be bananas at the store an hour from now. There’s no hurry. He can make a cup of coffee and enjoy his book, and once the carrot cake is done, he can go out and do his grocery shopping.

He also needs to get more flour though—and speaking of which, didn’t his mom always have almond flour in the pantry? What if that’s what she used in the banana bread that made the difference? Okay, now he’s excited. He never tried that. He could totally buy some and see how it works with his recipe.

He walks to the door determined, but then sees the oven and hesitates. Isn’t it safer to—

And now he’s feeling a weird impatient buzzing under his skin, so you know what, he’ll get in, get out, ten minutes tops, seven if he runs. He’s getting those bananas.

He steps out and hurries to the store.

When he comes back, the house is on fire.

-

Stiles’ brain can’t seem to process the scene.

He’s been gone exactly seven and a half minutes, and the whole house is somehow in flames. The oven, he thinks. He left the oven on. But seven minutes isn’t even enough to cook the cake inside, let alone the rest of the building.

It doesn’t make sense.

He hugs the bananas to his chest and tries not to throw up.

The neighbors were all out before he arrived and someone must’ve called 911, because Stiles sure didn’t. The fire engine parks sideways into the lawn and Stiles thinks vaguely that he’s never actually seen one of those in action. It looks cool.

“—tiles, are you alright?”

His father must’ve been yelling at him for some time, he looks worried, so Stiles shakes his stupor away and says, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I was out. I’m not hurt.”

He’s feeling more settled by the time Allison arrives, and seeing her, seeing the answer in her face, actually connects the dots for his suddenly useless brain.

 _Of course_ it wasn’t the oven.

They seem to put the fire out relatively easily, but honestly, how would Stiles know, he has no earthly idea how much time has passed. He’s got an emergency blanket over his shoulders he doesn’t remember taking, and Lydia’s showed up at some point, someone handed him a bottle of water which he’s been sipping for a while now, and—

His dad looks devastated. Stiles _is_ devastated. Their home is all black and soggy and burnt. Dead. Is there any chance to save anything? He doubts it. Anything that survived the fire will now be soot flavored.

All gone, then. Everything they have is gone.

Isaac’s suddenly there, hugging him fiercely, and Stiles’ ears once again tune into the real world and he hears Derek calling his name. He finds him over the heads of his friends and meets his frantic eyes.

“For god’s sake,” Stiles yells, “why are _you_ here?”

Derek stops in his tracks, unsure.

“Don’t you have enough trauma already? You need another fire like a frickin’ hole in the head.”

Derek huffs at him like a stubborn child. “I see you’re okay,” he says sarcastically.

Stiles shoos him away. “Seriously. Go away. Everything’s under control but it’s fucking depressing and the last thing Isaac needs is a depressed alpha.”

Nobody leaves, of course, not until his dad bundles him into his car, and then they scatter all at once.

There’s coffee at the station. Jordan brings them some and then starts hovering. His dad, thankfully, sends him away on an errand, and the two of them start going over the timeline in peace, which, by the way, is ridiculously detailed because Stiles was watching the clock obsessively, because—

“Oh, my god,” he says, dropping his head back. “I’m an idiot.”

“What?” his dad asks. He’s still scribbling the minute-by-minute account Stiles has been giving him.

“It was the wards,” Stiles says, palming his face. If this isn’t a facepalm moment, he doesn’t know what is. “Something kept nudging me to get out, get bananas, get flour, go out for a walk—it was the goddamn wards I set up myself, and I’m so frickin’ bad at it not only do they not work right but I didn’t even realize when they _were_ working.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means that I suck.”

The wards he failed to set up properly would’ve alerted him to any kind of danger, so it doesn’t say anything about how this came to be. Though of course Stiles _does_ know how it came to be. He’s just dreading the conversation.

“Okay, I’m just gonna pull the band aid,” he mumbles to himself, but before he can say the word _arson_ , there’s a knock.

It’s Derek.

“Sheriff, can I have a moment of your time?”

His dad sighs. “This is really not a good time,” he says, gesturing at his son huddled on the couch wearing a silver blanket.

“I know,” Derek tells him. “It’s about the fire.”

-

Stiles was drooping when Derek came in, feeling the morning catch up to him in a major way, but now he’s feeling like a live wire.

“Let me see that.”

He tries to get the sheet of paper from his dad, but it’s pulled away by a gloved hand.

“It’s evidence,” his dad berates him. It’s secured in a sheet protector faster than Stiles can protest.

“Fine,” he makes a show of hiding his hands, “just let me see.”

His dad turns it to face him. It’s a white sheet, ripped from a notebook. There’s a very distinct lipstick mark on one corner, and a loopy handwriting that says, _‘You know how I love keeping your family warm.’_

“Oh, I’m gonna throw up,” Stiles moans to himself, dropping back into his seat.

“Okay,” his dad says, the tone clearly conveying his lack of patience, “explain.”

Stiles opens and shuts his mouth without a sound. Where to start.

Derek seems to know where to start. “It’s from Kate Argent. She started the fire at your house.”

His dad’s face is priceless. Stiles would cackle except of course fun is dead, everything’s horrible, and he’d rather hide his face in the cushions.

“Explain _more_ ,” his dad says.

Derek, calmly and respectfully, does.

There have been many moments in recent past that felt like a nightmare to Stiles, but this right here, takes the cake.

Derek, who has been re-traumatized by yet another fire today, is calmly explaining his family’s murder and the guilt he carries about it to Stiles’ dad, who happens to be the sheriff and looks every bit as guilty as Stiles knew he would feel, even though the case was before his time and there was never anything he could do. The whole scene is giving Stiles stomach cramps.

“Okay, let’s say I believe you,” his father says, “why now, why our home?”

Derek looks down, then through his lashes at Stiles. “You told Allison,” he says softly. “And she told Kate.”

Stiles’ sense of time is off today, so he wouldn’t be able to say how long he stares back at Derek, thinking completely unrelated things. Like how he found Derek’s hair douchey before but now he likes it; it’s so dark and looks like it’d be soft to the touch, just like his coat as a wolf. Stiles has grown his own hair out this winter, felt like a change, but his doesn’t stay in shape like Derek’s. He may have inadvertently made himself appear even more messy with the longer cut.

“What exactly does that mean?” his father asks, sounding exasperated.

“Not important,” Stiles replies, dislodging random thoughts with a shake of his head. “That’s not it.”

“That’s what she means,” Derek insists. “Or she wouldn’t say family.”

Stiles is waving a hand in disagreement when his dad finally has enough. “I’m the sheriff,” he tells Stiles firmly. “You will tell me what you know.”

“But he’s wrong,” Stiles protests.

“ _Sheriff_ ,” his dad says, pointing at himself with a thumb. “Talk.”

Stiles shoots Derek a look, like _see what you’ve done._ It’s pointless though, because Derek’s pretty cowed already.

He takes a deep breath and tells his dad. “Derek proposed to me last year. I… respectfully declined.”

Derek snorts at his phrasing.

“Shut up,” Stiles says tightly, giving him a sidelong glance.

His dad heaves a sigh and palms his face. He’s looking at Stiles like—

“No,” Stiles tells him forcefully, shaking a finger. “You said you’re the sheriff; you’ll react as the sheriff!”

“Stiles—”

“Nope.” Stiles crosses his arms over his chest. “ _Sheriff_.”

“Fine,” his dad says, rubbing his eyes. “Fine. Why do you think Derek’s wrong?”

Oh, right. More things to explain. “I did tell Allison. And Lydia.” He’s looking at Derek, because he owes this answer to him more than his dad. “But I also told them – just the two of them – about the fire being arson, and Kate, and everything.”

Derek seems surprised, but not disapproving.

“Allison had to know, it’s her family, and I wanted her safe. But to convince her, I first had to do some digging.”

“Oh, no,” he hears his father say faintly.

“Digging?” Derek asks.

Stiles closes his eyes for a second. “The police file, some records… I just had to piece it together for her. And once we had the full picture, she wanted to confirm—with Kate.”

“What’s that mean?” Derek asks, looking panicked.

She already burned down Stiles’ house. He doesn’t know why Derek’s panicking _now_. “I had a chat with her—”

His dad makes drowning noises. Any moment now he’s going to say he needs a drink.

“—at a party!” Stiles defends himself. “In front of, like, forty people! I was safe!”

His dad snorts. “Yeah, _safe_.”

“Okay, it doesn’t sound good with an emergency blanket in the room but, at the time, it was just a harmless experiment to convince Allison, and—and for me to be absolutely certain, I guess.”

“What exactly did you talk about?” his dad asks.

“Derek,” Stiles says, gesturing broadly towards the man. “She was drunk, so Allison got her talking about Derek, and I mentioned the fire, and—look, it took me all of two seconds to see it in her face. The whole thing was like Psychopaths 101. But I wanted Allison to be sure, so I played along for a bit— _and then_ I couldn’t play along anymore, and… she may have realized I’d been playing her and _assumed things_ about me and Derek.” He shakes his head like _what can you do_. “I have it on tape if you wanna listen.”

“Why wouldn’t you,” his dad mumbles into his palms.

“And my research is on the cloud, so that’s somewhere to start. I don’t think I have enough for a conviction but if she assumed Derek wouldn’t come forward and actually left her DNA on this—” He waves a hand at the creepy note. “—then you’ll have her for good. I mean, what I have is all circumstantial, but it’s a lot. At least four more fires, all werewolf families, all within the timeframe of Kate being in their town. Different cities, same MO, same insurance guy who never sees anything suspicious and they’re all ruled accidental. My connection was the insurance guy and he only worked for the company for another two years; there are probably more fires that I couldn’t find after that.”

He notices Derek staring at him, stock-still.

“What,” he says, self-conscious.

Derek doesn’t answer him, doesn’t stop staring at him.

“Okay,” Stiles says, moving on. “I’ll email you the cloud link, but now I really need to get ho—” He realizes what he’s saying and stops, rubs his face. “Ugh, I don’t have a home.” And then it occurs to him, “I don’t have any _clothes_.” He looks down at himself. “This is all I have. Oh, my _god_.”

Derek clears his throat, but the sound gets lost under Stiles’ moaning. He does it again.

“If you haven’t made any plans yet, I had a couple of rooms prepared at the pack house for you two,” he says, perfectly polite, perfectly formal.

“Oh, no,” Stiles says, “you really don’t need to do that—”

“This is my fault,” Derek says, looking him in the eye. “I was too ashamed to talk the first time around, so nobody found out what she is. I was the one who told you about it, which set things in motion. I was the whole reason she targeted you in the first place.” He turns his gaze to the sheriff. “We have more than enough space. We’d be happy to host you for as long as you need.”

Stiles tries to catch his dad’s eye, which he expertly avoids.

“Thank you, Derek,” he says, pointed and sweet. “That would be great.”


	11. Chapter 11

# 11

> _ “I fancy, Lizzy, that obstinacy is the real defect of his character, after all. He has been accused of many faults at different times, but this is the true one. Nothing was to be done that he did not do himself.” _

Stiles is greeted by his friends at the Hale house, each seemingly fretting more than the other.

“Isaac had some of your old clothes we put aside for tailoring, they’re in your room,” Lydia tells him, rubbing his arm. “Mostly formal stuff but Danny and Jackson went shopping for the rest. Just enough to get you through this week.”

Danny’s behind her, holding a laptop. “We also bought you this,” he says. “I knew you’d go crazy without a computer.”

Stiles is misting up. They’re being so nice and he’s _so exhausted_.

“You wanna go lie down or eat something first?” Jackson asks, as if he’s the host. Stiles knows they’ve been spending a lot of time here, but this is ridiculous. Still, it’s better than the alternative, and Jackson looks wonderfully solid to him right now. Stiles tips himself forward to faceplant on his shoulder and just lets him take his weight. “Oookay,” Jackson says, bracing his feet and wrapping an arm around Stiles. “Come on, buddy, I’ll take you to your room.”

Walking into the room feels like déjà vu, even though he’s not being shown into the same generic guestroom but one on a different floor altogether. A suite, much larger than the one before, and decorated in warm greens.

“This is nice,” Stiles finds himself mumbling, the fancy fabric of the curtains soft and slippery between his fingers.

Jackson raises an eyebrow. “Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t give up the master suite for you.”

Stiles ignores him with practiced ease and walks towards the large balcony, shared, apparently, with the room next door, where his dad will be staying. These rooms are on the third floor, at the back, facing the preserve. The picture windows Derek seems to favor have a beautiful view of it; being higher up, Stiles can spot the tops of some of his favorite old trees from here.

Jackson shows him where the clothes and the toiletries are, and then with a firm pat against his back, leaves him on his own to shower.

It’s amazing, Stiles thinks, that he’s here again and he’s hurt _again_. He washes the sweat off of himself and watches in surprise as black soot also works its way down the drain. He didn’t realize he was ever that close to the fire. It never even occurred to him to look in a mirror today, god knows what he looked like walking around with all that ash.

He finds a pair of sweatpants in a drawer, a soft t-shirt in his size, and underwear, thankfully. Danny’s favorite kind – don’t ask how he knows – so Stiles can tell who was responsible for this part of the shopping. The friend who’ll get you underwear and a laptop in your time of need, that’s Danny Mahealani for you. And Jackson must’ve bought the Nike sweatpants. Much like his wife, the man is allergic to generic brands.

The bed is heavenly when he lies down but it’s too early, even with all the trauma-related exhaustion, to sleep. Stiles busies himself with going over the wards, trying to figure out what he got wrong. As always, he managed to get the essence of it right. The wards knew enough to get him out of there, detected the danger as they were meant to. They did absolutely nothing to stop the arson as far as Stiles can tell though; that part of the spell was a total failure. Although, to be certain, he’d need to know how exactly the fire was set. If Kate was using magic somehow to start the fires, which wouldn’t surprise Stiles considering how fast it grew, it could’ve possibly bypassed Stiles’ already weak wards.

Once again, he finds himself getting carried away by his wild ideas for guardian trees, protection magic woven, literally, from roots. There are so many trees in the preserve with protective properties, and so many of them would love to help, Stiles knows he can do it. It would take time to set up experiments with it, would be so much harder to perform than any other kind of magic he’s studied, but once established, it would last for generations.

Most wards keep draining the spellcaster because they are just that, spells, tied to the caster’s magic. If Stiles can pull this off, it would be tied to the trees, the woods, the land itself, and it would stand on its own. Trees sense danger. Trees have miles of networks that carry news of droughts and insect outbreaks; not all of them may understand human concepts of danger, but Stiles believes they can be taught. Fire, they would’ve understood. Malice, the sensitive ones would surely be able to feel.

How they would alert humans, Stiles has not figured out yet. But until he can work that part out, he can just as well use their deterrent qualities, like mountain ash but layered, more complex.

By the time he’s made a mental list of the trees he’d like to try, it’s dark out and his body’s settled some. He’s less jittery for sure, and present enough in the moment to realize he’s hungry and needs to stretch his muscles.

Physically, he feels like he’s been hit by a truck.

Emotionally, he’s choosing to defer his well-earned breakdown until after Kate’s been caught and they’re all finally safe.

Downstairs, he finds Isaac watching TV with Scott, Melissa sipping tea out on the porch. They all invite him to hang out, but Stiles feels like he needs to move.

“I think I’m going to go out for a walk,” he tells them and finds his shoes. A little ashy, but they’ll do.

He wanders down paths he’s not familiar with, winding through the woods to find the Nemeton. He gets an earful from it for staying away, and then lets the good vibes it sends his way wash over him. The Nemeton isn’t what you’d call nurturing, but all trees have an innate sense of community and they’re used to sharing each other’s pain. Stiles pretends he’s one of them and lets his sadness be felt.

He’s lost a lot today.

When he makes his way back home, his Jeep is in the driveway. He has to laugh when he realizes the bananas and the almond flour are still in the passenger seat. Just as well, it’s not like he has anything else planned for today.

The digital space-age oven of the Hale house delivers his banana bread right on time.

It tastes wonderful.

It seems the wards released some long-lost baking secret of his mother’s from deep inside his memories. Ironic, that it should come on the day he’s lost every other bit of memento he’d left of her.

He waves at the guys weakly and climbs the stairs back to his room to cry into his bread in peace. He thinks he’s thoroughly earned it.

-

His father appears at his door sometime around midnight.

“Any news?” Stiles asks, watching him close the door behind himself with care.

“She fled,” his dad says. He looks like death warmed over.

That was to be expected. “She’s not stupid.”

“No,” his dad agrees. “We have the APB out though. She’ll slip up sooner or later.”

Stiles is not so sure. “You know, I got the feeling that she had contacts in the department back in the day. She still might.”

His father takes a seat at one of the armchairs in front of the windows. Stiles follows his lead. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Argents are well-connected in this town.”

Stiles takes a moment to consider the Argents’ place in their community. There may be something there. “Maybe that’s an angle you can work,” he points out. “Kate is going down for sure. They failed to take care of this in-house when they still could. Now it’s in their best interests to help with the investigation or risk taking on their share of the blame when it all comes out.”

His father’s nodding, he must’ve already talked to Chris. “They’re going to claim to be completely unaware…”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “That woman is a textbook psychopath. I don’t want to think Chris knew about this either, but he must’ve known she wasn’t right in the head. And Gerard? You know he knows, if he didn’t plan the whole thing himself.”

“I do remember the dinner party conversations revolving around Derek; they were laying it on a bit too thick. But I doubt we’ll ever be able to prove it.”

“Proven or not, if the Argents are going to benefit from being thought of as the town protectors, then they sure as hell will have to own up to their family’s filth now.”

His dad’s shoulders droop, he waves a hand at him. “I don’t wanna know what you’re planning.”

“I’m not planning anything,” Stiles tells him honestly. Not yet anyway. But it’s carefully noted in a dark corner of his mind. “Just saying. Small town people talk.”

They sit in silence for a moment until it occurs to Stiles, “Do you have any clothes? I can go shopping for you tomorrow if you want?”

His father shakes his head tiredly. “I had some things in my locker at work. Enough to get by. And someone was kind enough to leave toiletries in my room.” He gives Stiles a long, suspicious look. “We’re being treated like royalty here, I see.”

Stiles hmms noncommittally.

“Are you planning on telling me what’s going on between you and Hale?”

Stiles widens his eyes. “Am I talking to the sheriff right now or my dad?”

The face he gets in response is a work of art and definitely _all dad_.

“It’s nothing,” Stiles answers him, which is the truth as far as he knows.

“It does seem like nothing, what with him building a pack out of your friends and his ex burning down our home.”

“Completely unrelated things.”

“If you say so.” His dad chooses not to push it. He gets up, sideways hugs a still-seated Stiles to his stomach. “I just want you to be okay. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” Stiles promises him.

A kiss is pressed onto the top of his head. “Good,” his dad says. “And if this nothing ever turns into something?” he adds, “I personally wouldn’t mind.”

Stiles gives him an unimpressed look. “You can’t preemptively give your blessing.”

“I just did.”

“Ugh,” Stiles says, watching him leave. “I like the sheriff better.”

His dad pokes his head back in. “And I get what you meant by ‘beige’ now,” he says. “This one’s pretty colorful in comparison.”

Stiles doesn’t throw anything at his head, but only because his arms feel like noodles.

-

The next morning Cora informs him that Derek’s on a last-minute business trip.

“Architecture emergency?”

“Seems like,” she says, loudly chewing her cornflakes. “You know what happens if he doesn’t 3D print those models…”

“Nothing much?” Stiles ventures a guess.

“Nothing at all, actually.”

Melissa is at work and everyone else seems to be sleeping. Stiles pours himself a bowl of Cheerios and joins Cora at the table. They eat in companionable silence, each scrolling on their phones, until Cora puts her spoon down and stares at him in a steady and curious way.

“What?” Stiles asks; he’s starting to feel self-conscious.

“Nothing. Just—what are you doing today?”

Stiles thinks about it. What _is_ he doing today? “I need to talk to Deaton, but other than that, just feeling sorry for myself, probably. Why?”

Cora smiles and takes her bowl to the sink with a spring in her step. “I just heard that you talk to the Nemeton and wanted to meet him, that’s all.”

“Oh.” People don’t ask to meet trees, usually, but werewolves do have a different kind of connection to the land. Then again, Derek never asked for an introduction, just sort of invited himself over to sit quietly by. “I guess we can do that.”

They take a walk in the preserve, and Stiles finds himself charmed by how openly curious Cora is about everything he can do. As subtle and underwhelming as it can be, he enjoys what he does, and he doesn’t get to share it with a lot of people. It’s fun being able to show off.

He points out his favorite trees to her, many of which are flowering this time of the year, as if they put on fancy dresses for the introduction. He asks what Cora’s favorite flowers are and is flabbergasted to find out that she never even thought about it. To someone who lives and breathes flora, her answer is not acceptable to Stiles, so he spends a full hour pushing up wildflowers left and right, until she gives in and decidedly states that her favorites are the coneflowers.

“Cause they’re funny looking.”

Stiles scoffs. “They’re a lot more than funny looking.” He cups the upturned head of a tall one. “This is echinacea. They make medicine out of this.”

“Funny looking medicine,” she mocks him. “What’s your favorite?” she asks, stopping his imminent tirade in its tracks. Which is just as well.

“Lavender,” he answers. “My mother used to have lavender everywhere. I have some—” Or does he? He never even asked about the backyard. Does he still have his plants? He needs to go check on the lemon tree, make sure it wasn’t damaged. “Well, I _had_ some in my backyard, but I don’t know if they made it through the fire.”

The walk to the Nemeton is somber after that. Stiles decides to make some Super Mario mushrooms pop up in a mossy clearing to cheer them up.

No one but Stiles actually hears the Nemeton, and sharing its thoughts in words is difficult to say the least. But luckily, it remembers the Hale family.

“It?” Cora asks, “Not he?”

“They don’t think of gender the way we do,” Stiles explains. “I go with what they feel like to me.”

“Does it—call itself the Nemeton or is that just something we say?”

Nobody ever asked him that before. “Actually, it prefers Jack.”

“Really?”

“No,” Stiles tells her, ducking her fist. “It doesn’t use words, so I can’t really tell you. There’s a feeling it uses to refer to itself but it’s not something I can describe.”

“Nemeton it is, then.”

They sit and talk for a bit, Stiles trying to be a go-between as much as he can. Stiles didn’t talk to the Nemeton much about Derek but with the two of them regularly meeting there, it got curious and poked and prodded his mind for details. It remembers the Hales fondly, remembers the pain of the fire. The forest mourned, it says, making Cora sniffle once, quietly.

“I only found Derek three years ago, you know,” she says, tracing the whorls of the stump absently.

“I didn’t know that, no.”

“I was with a pack in South America before that. Afterwards, I joined Derek in New York and stayed with the Crawfords. It’s better to be with an established pack than being on your own, but…” She looks up, her hair sweeps back from her face. “I’m glad we’re here now. I wasn’t sure before, thought it would be too painful to come back, but it’s home, you know? This place is familiar in a way nowhere else ever was. And our own pack…” She smiles. “It’s gonna be amazing.”

“It better be,” Stiles tells her in a lighter tone. He’s really not ready for a heart to heart with a Hale. “You’ve got Isaac now. I’m not letting him be in a second-rate pack.”

Cora makes a rude noise at the mere suggestion.

“Though your brother did say last year he was a second-rate omega—or was he just talking about me? I’m not sure.”

“He did not!” Cora says, pushing his shoulder.

Stiles nods with glee. “I think his exact words were ‘bottom of the pile’.”

“That _idiot_.” Cora seems mad. And Stiles was only trying to lighten the mood. “Don’t take anything he says seriously,” she advises. “He insisted on coming back here, fought with me over it in fact, but I know he was dreading it more than I ever did. He’s—well, let’s just say he doesn’t handle stress well. He was stoic, right? Looked all cool and collected?”

Eh. Somewhat. Stiles says as much with his face.

“Now, imagine his mind as this huge empty room, right? And five tiny Dereks are running around screaming in there. He’s at a party or whatever, looks fashionably bored, but the tiny Dereks are, like, yelling their tiny heads off.”

Stiles bites his lip picturing the scene. That’s certainly an interesting take on PTSD.

“Nobody can see them, so they think he’s cool, he’s suave, but the tiny Dereks are transforming into wolves after a while and they start scratching at his brain. So he snaps and acts like an ass and people are surprised, thinking it came out of nowhere, but only because they don’t know what a nutcase he really is on the inside.”

“That’s—really quite a picture,” Stiles says feelingly. “I mean, obviously I didn’t know about the tiny Dereks,” he gives her, “but I got the gist after a while.”

“Good,” Cora says, studying his face for lies and appearing satisfied. “Don’t let the tiny jerks drive you away.”

Stiles doesn’t know what to say to that; so instead of reacting, he sabotages the conversation by asking after Ava and Amelia.

Cora’s face when she’s talking about them is a masterclass in polite disdain. Stiles is duly impressed by her implied eyerolls – he needs to learn how to do that – and he’s warmed by their shared antipathy.

He promptly berates himself for reading into it though. There’s a touch of jealousy in his dislike that makes him uneasy, whereas Cora probably thinks of them as some sort of annoying cousins.

So when she says, “They’re quite sad they were disinvited this year,” he tells his heart firmly to stop it—stop the madness, just stop.

“Derek politely told them that they’d be coming to Beacon Hills for a second season over his dead body,” Cora explains, and nope, nope, nope, Stiles is very much not doing this. Abort.

How do you further sabotage a conversation you’ve already sabotaged? He reaches out with his mind and prods the soil for a subject change, finds it in the form of a blue dick flower.

Always a crowd pleaser.

He kindly asks for it to come save him.

-

Deaton stops by the house that afternoon and the two of them take over the library to talk.

He makes them go over what Stiles did with the wards in excruciating detail, again and again, while he takes notes of Stiles’ failures and makes attentive noises like he’s studying a particularly fascinating case. He concludes that he needs to see it in person and suggests that maybe Stiles should come with when he does. It’s probably for the best. As much as Stiles likes the theory of things, his finest work has always been hands on.

With his notebook put away, Deaton gets Stiles to fess up the whole Kate Argent saga, commenting very little and looking as worried as he ever has. Stiles knows Deaton doesn’t enjoy off-the-cuff conversations so makes a note to poke him about her in a few days. He was here when the Hale fire happened. He must’ve looked into it.

They talk about how Isaac and the pack are doing. Deaton seems pleased with how that’s going. Stiles doesn’t have the brain capacity to get into it in detail.

He spends the evening with Cora and Isaac, playing scrabble, and wipes the floor with them both. He hugs his father who missed dinner and goes to sleep early.

The next morning, he expects to at least hear about Derek’s impending arrival, but nobody seems to know his plans. It’s not like Derek owes him anything, not like Stiles would want any of them to put their lives on hold just because his house burned down, but it feels odd that he’s not there. Feels intentional.

But why would Derek avoid him? Why invite him if he was going to disappear?

Erica shows up while he’s up to his elbows in flour that day and distracts him from pointless worries.

“Boyd, look!” she shrieks, hugging him from behind. “Mommy’s here!”

Stiles elbows her in the stomach and turns around in her slackened grip. “Really, Reyes?” he says. “You can do better than a sexist stereotype.”

She grins at him as he takes her in. “You look good,” he says, poking her further away with a flour-covered finger. “Is it—?" He gestures at his own temple in question.

“Yup!” she confirms with delight. “I’m a brand-new woman.”

“Good.” That’s a relief. “And the rest of it? How’s your inner wolf treating you?”

She pulls herself up on the counter. “Better than I expected, honestly. Physically, life just got a whole lot easier. The instincts are a little confusing at first, but you get the hang of it soon enough.” She pauses, watches him cut up butter into the bowl. “Sex is crazy good,” she says, making Stiles choke on his own spit. “That’s how they should advertise this: take the bite and become a wild sex goddess.”

Stiles looks around for Boyd, but he’s wisely disappeared. “Are you telling me you weren’t a sex goddess before?”

“Different weight class,” she tells him. “You’ll see.”

Stiles shoots her a warning look.

“That look is really not the way to convince me you’re not the pack mother.”

They hang out until the pie is done, and then she and Boyd stay for dinner because it’s almost time for it anyway. Stiles finds himself enjoying their company, the easy camaraderie between them and Cora, the way they always try to include Isaac. Scott, especially, seems to have taken him under his wing. Never once do Stiles’ protective instincts ping, which relaxes muscles he didn’t know were tense in the first place.

His father, once again, stays late at work. Stiles tries not to let that worry him.

Day three dawns early for him, so he goes for a run in the preserve before breakfast. After a batch of pancakes, he visits his backyard and checks on the lemon tree. It’s not happy but it’s alive. The lavender, being closer to the house, wasn’t so lucky.

Deaton arrives and they work on puzzling out Stiles’ wards. Visually it’s a mess, Stiles can’t even unknot what he’s weaved in there, it’s so tangled up. The feeling it gives off isn’t right either. Deaton seems to think he laid the foundation wrong and the rest of it, the actual instructions, had no chance of ever working right. Stiles figures this type of spellcasting is just not his thing. If he ever attempts something like it again, he’s asking for Lydia’s help. She has the perfect mind for it. 

Seeing the house again reminds him that they need to do something about it, talk to the insurance company, find a contractor; it’s probably going to be a long process, they need to get the ball rolling as quickly as possible. He stops by the station to volunteer his services for whatever his dad needs done but finds him strangely settled on the subject.

“It’s all taken care of.”

Stiles blinks at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His dad makes an expansive rolling gesture that Stiles is pretty sure he picked up from his one and only twitchy, flail-y son. “It means I already got the insurance paperwork started, and Derek sent over a crew for appraisal yesterday. They’ll be ready to start in a week.”

“Derek sent a crew…” His brain is emitting a weird, high-pitched alarm; Stiles is sure of it.

“He’s an architect,” his dad argues, as if that’s got anything to do with anything.

“And how are we paying for this?” Stiles asks, though he’s not sure he wants to know the answer.

“Derek says we’ll take care of it when the insurance money comes in.”

Stiles tells himself to breathe. “We can’t accept that,” he says firmly, except it doesn’t come out firm at all. It sounds pathetic even to his own ears.

“He wouldn’t take no for an answer,” his father explains with a shrug. This isn’t like him, Stiles thinks. This isn’t like him at all. He’s only this cavalier about it because he thinks—

“Dad, you know he and I aren’t…”

He gets waved away. “You told me to butt out of your love life and I did. This has nothing to do with anything else. Derek feels responsible, he insisted on helping. I would’ve said no, but these guys have been working on his house for over a year already. They built however many houses he has up there now, and they’re actually still working on a few of them. I don’t even wanna know how much that whole compound cost. They probably owe him multiple favors by now. Just let him help, okay? He knows what he’s doing, and we’ll pay him back soon enough.”

Stiles doesn’t like it, but he can’t overrule his dad; he wouldn’t even want to right now, when he’s so stressed already.

“Fine,” he says. “Fine. We’ll let him help.”

Then he thinks bitterly, _if he ever deigns to show up…_

It’s amazing how the man is in every part of his life and nowhere to be found at the same time.

-

That night, Stiles insists that his dad come home at a reasonable hour for dinner and a full-night’s rest.

He makes him a roast chicken, vegetables on the side, an arugula salad, and even a peanut butter ice cream cake for dessert. The table is set beautifully, the chicken is about to be carved—but of course this being his life, his dad’s phone starts ringing before they even stick a knife in it.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Stiles says, giving him the evil eye.

His dad’s body language changes as soon as he hears what the person on the other end is saying. He gets up slowly, Stiles follows suit; his heart is thundering in his ears by the time he hears his dad say, “I’ll be right there. Wait for me.”

“Kate?” Stiles asks, almost breathless from the adrenaline.

His dad offers him a tight nod and thunders up the stairs for his uniform and gun.

Stiles’ brain goes into overdrive. He’s been warding the house with Deaton’s help, one tiny sigil at a time, but this is different. His dad is going to her; she’ll have the advantage there. They don’t know what he’ll be walking into. Is she expecting him? Is she alone? Does she have accomplices? Do they have magic?

Stiles wishes he could go as backup but his dad’s stance on this has been firm from day one. The preserve, the Nemeton, and the supernatural pest problems are Stiles’ area; he’s not allowed anywhere near the rest of the cases.

He may not have to be near to help, though.

“A pen!” he snaps his fingers at Isaac. “I need a pen!”

Somebody hands him one and he starts sketching on the back of their scrabble points tally from the other day. By the time he hears his dad’s steps coming down, he has something. Maybe not perfect, but it’s something to try.

“Hold on,” he says, grabbing his dad’s shirt before he can slip out the door. Pushing his head forward, Stiles starts drawing on the back of his neck.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Shush,” he tells his dad. “I need to get this right.”

It’s inelegant but it’s done. He drops the pen and grabs for his dad’s keys from his pocket. He has a pocketknife that’ll do.

Melissa reaches for him on instinct. “Stiles, what—”

“It’s okay,” Stiles reassures her. It’s just the tip of his finger. That’s hardly gonna bleed.

He presses the blood into the sigil, and it glows for a second, earning an impressed _woah_ from Scott. Stiles feels it come alive in his chest and only then feels able to let his dad go.

“Alright, you can go now,” he says, sucking his finger into his mouth. “Don’t wipe it off,” he yells after him. “And wear a vest! That’s not a magic shield, you know!”

They all watch his taillights disappear down the driveway.

“What exactly is it?” Isaac asks.

Stiles tries to come up with a name for it.

“It’s a magic shield, isn’t it?”

Best Stiles has got is _mystic armor_ , so he winces and says, “Yeah.”

Scott seems confused. “But you just said—”

“I don’t want him getting cocky.”

Stiles can’t possibly eat after that, and he can’t call his dad. He checks the police frequency, but they seem to have gone radio silent. He has a crude link with the sigil, so he focuses on that, on the faint heartbeat he thinks he can feel, and spends the night sending what he hopes is good energy through their connection and not constant anxiety.

Finally, around 4:00 AM, he gets a text.

From **Dad:**

We got her

From **Stiles:**

THANK FUCK

From **Dad:**

Language

He takes a couple of deep breaths, and then lets the purr of the faint link between them lull him to sleep.

Finally, they’re safe.

-

Lydia has been checking up on Stiles daily, but on day five, she shows up with Jackson and Danny, a bottle of wine, and a picnic basket, making Stiles smile wide enough that his cheeks hurt.

They spend half a day together in the woods, and Stiles feels thoroughly safe, surrounded by his people. They talk about nothing important – they avoid every unpleasant topic, even Allison’s absence, which is understandable yet still depressing – but the moment feels significant, proving to Stiles that he still has what really matters, that while change may be inevitable and painful, some things remain wonderfully constant.

After waving the guys off in their cars, Stiles finds his feet unwilling to go back into the Hale house. He stands before it, huge, beautiful and so new that it still smells like paint; and feels strange about walking in there and cooking a meal.

He likes the house just fine, but it’s not his.

Stiles always valued his routine, and now that it’s literally all gone up in flames, he feels unmoored without it. He can always create a new routine, a part of him is itching to fall into one here, with his friends and Derek’s pack; it feels natural but also a little audacious, and a lot like setting himself up for a fall.

He turns away from the house with a heavy heart and starts walking down alongside the stream instead. It widens a little further in the path and he figures he can dip his feet in for a bit, listen to the sounds of the forest. The stream is by far the most attractive part of the Hale house for Stiles. ‘Walking distance from the woods’ has been his most daring real estate fantasy; he never even imagined being able to live this close to a water source.

The water is loud, and werewolves in general are surprisingly silent, which is what Stiles blames the whole thing on, honestly. And his being lost in thought can’t have helped.

What happens is Stiles steps on a garment, a shirt, covered in dust, and when he looks around for the owner, he finds him standing in the middle of the pool of water, where the stream grows wide and still, his back to Stiles and extremely naked.

Stiles is normally a very loud person, he knows this about himself, but seeing Derek naked, out of nowhere, in the middle of the woods, freezes him into perfect silence. His feet have stopped; he’s not even breathing.

Derek… is magnificent.

He must’ve always been this beautiful, but Stiles somehow never saw it before. He was so set on hating the man that he never registered what he looked like. His eyes have been growing on Stiles lately, and his hair, but the rest of him is… really quite something.

He’s washing the dust and mud off his hair and face in graceful movements. He looks at home in the stream so maybe this is something he regularly does after running in the woods. The way the muscles of his back move is mesmerizing, and his tattoo almost has a life of its own. Stiles remembers seeing it back when they were hunting Peter Hale and Derek seemed to take his shirt off every two hours, but back then it didn’t seem like the work of art it clearly is.

Context, Stiles thinks. Eye of the beholder and all that.

Now, the late afternoon sun is painting Derek’s skin the warmest gold, and the water is sluicing down his back in a pornographic choreography and—Stiles looks away. He really shouldn’t be doing this.

Any moment now, Derek is going to turn around and they’re both going to be horrified. Not only is what he’s doing super creepy, but he knows he’ll be mortified when he’s caught. Knowing him, there’ll be flailing and sputtering, and the last thing he needs is to make himself appear even less attractive. It would be super ironic and honestly, incredibly in character of him, to prove himself unsuitable the moment he finally admitted that yeah, Derek is pretty much everything.

Stiles is so very screwed.

He won’t let himself be cowed by Derek Hale’s naked ass though.

He stands tall and pretends not to be having a breakdown. Clearing his throat, he begs his voice not to crack. “What the hell happened to you?”

Derek jerks his head around – he really didn’t know Stiles was there – and stares like a deer in headlights. And then, in a flurry of movement, he transforms into a wolf and Stiles has a wet puppy the size of a small car barreling towards him excitedly.

Derek’s nose nudges insistently at his thigh and Stiles forgets what he was worried about.

“You’re wet, you giant mutt,” Stiles complains, stepping back.

Derek’s response is a full body shake, showering him with water and mud.

“You’re a jerk,” Stiles tells him fondly.

Derek whuffs.

Whatever Stiles has found himself in the middle of here, he’s pretty sure Derek’s right there with him.

So he follows Derek home, both dripping wet now, and tries not to fret too much.


	12. Chapter 12

# 12

> _ “She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.” _

With Derek in the house, everything suddenly becomes overcharged.

Stiles makes waffles for breakfast and trips on nothing when he realizes Derek is watching him move about the kitchen. Derek doesn’t seem unhappy but still, is he being presumptuous, acting like he owns the place? He’s only a guest here, after all. Is it really his place to be cooking without being asked?

He holes up in the library afterwards, but Derek finds him soon enough and makes small talk with him for a very odd half hour. He asks him regular host questions: Does he like the house? Is his room comfortable? Does his father need anything while they stay with them? But somehow coming from Derek, they sound ominous. Actual small talk from Derek Hale would be a sign of Armageddon, surely. Stiles isn’t overreacting here. The books judge him silently, but he ignores them in favor of texting Allison once again. She hasn’t been responding for a while now and it’s starting to worry him.

After a quick lunch, he wants some air and finds himself walking around the perimeter of the house, wondering what it’ll look like when they finally get around to doing some landscaping. With the construction equipment still coming and going, they haven’t bothered planting anything yet, and any existing greenery got decimated last year, when the main building went up. Stiles has so many ideas for flowerbeds and vegetable patches and beautiful large trees, but again, _presumptuous as fuck_ is the phrase that comes to mind.

Cora joins him for a couple of circuits and he’s very careful not to mention any of his weirdly possessive fantasies about their land. She mentions craving pizza and he blurts out they can totally do that tonight, and then worries about overstepping by making plans for the pack.

How does it appear from the outside? He’s settled in a large suite in their home, he’s deciding what they’ll have for breakfast and dinner, planning lavender beds around the property… It’s bad. This is all very, very bad. He’s used to being embarrassed but not on things like this—never for taking liberties with an alpha. He needs to rein this in before he makes a fool of himself and his dad.

Cora doesn’t let the pizza idea go, unfortunately, and drags him out for groceries – which Stiles pays for himself, thank you very much – and they come back just in time to make the dough. It’s not easy, making enough pizza for a houseful of werewolves, but at least Erica and Boyd aren’t there tonight, so Stiles counts his lucky stars. Everyone keeps walking into the kitchen to see what’s happening and then not walking out, so Stiles just lets them make their own pies, as inefficient as the whole practice proves to be. Scott makes a mess, Isaac is no longer authorized to use a knife, and Melissa needs to eat something other than vegetables on her pizza, but all in all, it’s a crazy good time, more fun than Stiles had in ages, and at one point, he looks up to find Derek laughing, and… it’s all so…

He takes a deep breath, puts on a polite smile, and very pointedly does not read into anything at all.

Except for how he feels. That part has been pretty clear for a while, no reading necessary, and he can’t help but acknowledge it now. Ignoring it is no longer an option; he’s filled to the brim and overflowing.

When you get heart palpitations at the sight of someone smiling, there’s really only one explanation for it. When you want to sit and stare at them for hours at a time. Miss them when they’re gone, and it feels like the whole world rights itself as soon as they arrive.

Stiles is in love.

With Derek Hale.

Well, _fuck_.

“Stiles is officially in charge of dinner from now on,” Melissa says as they eat. “All in favor?”

Everyone chimes in with their agreement and Derek offers him a warm, approving smile.

Stiles makes himself look away from him in a hurry.

 _Save me_ , he begs his dad with his eyes. He’d rather not say from what, but crack detective that he is, Stiles is sure his father knew before him.

But the sheriff ignores his firstborn like a pro and enjoys his aptly named meat extravaganza pizza.

-

Stiles’ day has been a slow-moving heart attack, so before going to sleep, he steps out onto the balcony and tries to meditate.

His mind keeps conjuring up trees. There should be trees around the house. A willow takes shape in his mind, tall and glorious, right near the stream. He realizes that it’s not imaginary, he must’ve actually reached out during his many tours around the property and mapped the old roots subconsciously, because he can actually feel its muted presence even from here. And he keeps getting pictures of other shrubs and plants in random places, like a ghost forest; the way they used to be or the way they can be? He’s not even sure which.

He sees the house aglow with wards under the full moon, safe and sacred, a permanent part of the woods. He sees stars shining down and a fire lit in the yard, laughter floating up into the sky. He sees snow on the ground, wolves playing in the preserve, a pair of boot prints following them into the tree line.

Stiles sees a life, a possibility, one that calls to him.

He sees a family, a pack, with him right in the center of it.

It feels real, and a part of him aches for it to be his, but he doesn’t dare trust any of it.

Still, he stays up late into the night, chasing scene after scene of what could be.

It’s a good dream.

-

The following day is a Saturday and everyone’s home, so after a morning run and a quick breakfast, Stiles makes himself scarce.

A day of taking care of puppies is exactly what he needs, and wonder of wonders, Deaton even seems to be in a good mood. He reads, plays with a beagle, and runs his random ideas by Deaton all day, until the man starts giving him the look, the stop-hiding-in-my-practice-and-do-whatever-you’re-avoiding look that Stiles knows too well, and when Stiles tries to ignore _that_ , he actually pulls a chair and sits facing him, waiting for him to crack.

“What,” Stiles mumbles. He kisses the beagle one last time and puts her down. He can sense a talk coming and the poor puppy is too young to be subjected to Deaton’s thinly veiled bitching.

“Are you comfortable staying with the Hale Pack?”

“It’s alright,” Stiles says. He has too many conflicting feelings about it to actually try and be honest right now. Short and polite will have to do.

“They seem to enjoy having you there.”

They do, Stiles finds himself thinking. They’ve each actually taken pains to make sure he knows. Huh. He never thought about it that way; maybe that’s what all that one-on-one time has been about.

“You know you have a very special gift.”

Okay, now he’s lost Stiles. “I guess?”

“You can do a great many things with it.”

Stiles squints at him. This is even more oblique than what he’s come to expect from Deaton on an average day. “Yeah…”

“Being an emissary wouldn’t be a very limiting choice, if you wanted to go that way.”

Stiles’ face is doing things he can’t control, and his brain can’t quite grasp what Deaton’s saying. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

Deaton would be rolling his eyes if he wasn’t Deaton. But since he _is_ Deaton, he just stares at Stiles for an uncomfortably long moment and says, “I had a talk with Derek recently, and I got the feeling that he’ll be offering you the emissary position in his pack.”

Stiles’ throat closes up.

Deaton, clueless, continues, “I think you should consider it. The pack is small now but it’s going to grow. Their territory is vast, and the Hale family has a long, celebrated history in Beacon Hills. It would be an honor for anyone to be asked, and with your connection to the Nemeton, it’s a very good match, I have to say.”

A million scenarios are running in Stiles’ head at once, and he feels his most foolish hopes crumbling, but on the outside, he keeps his cool. He will not let his disappointment be public. It’s humiliating enough in his head. “I don’t know if I’m ready for something like that,” he says as if reading from a script.

“That’s actually the beauty of it,” Deaton says. “As the pack grows, you can grow into the position. It’s really fortuitous, timing-wise.”

He gets up, ushers the beagle back into her crate.

“I’m not telling you to accept, that’s entirely your decision, but I would urge you to consider it.”

Stiles must say something to satisfy him and they must bid goodbye as usual, but it’s all a bit hazy. Stiles tells himself to keep following the outline of his day, stop by the pharmacy, buy a couple of t-shirts, and then—back to the Hale house, where his feet don’t want to go but neither do they have any reason to stay away. Nothing he can complain about, aside from his own silly, irrational fantasies crashing and burning.

He seeks refuge in his room and then, feeling suffocated, steps out onto the balcony.

He can’t sit still, he can’t meditate, so he paces like a caged animal, putting the most awful puzzle together in his head.

Derek came back to Beacon Hills a changed man and started being nice to Stiles.

Derek introduced his sister to him, his only living relative—maybe his second in the pack?

Derek brought him home and left him alone with his pack, on purpose—perhaps to remove their past acrimony from the equation as he got to know them?

Derek has been watching him with approval whenever he acted like he was one of them.

Derek’s been hanging out with him at the Nemeton, the all-powerful tree that’s at the center of all supernatural activity in Beacon Hills. No one controls the Nemeton, but Stiles surely comes the closest, and a pack that has the Nemeton’s favor would be respected and feared by everyone.

Stiles clutches at his stomach; the realization is almost a physical blow.

Derek may have once wanted him, but not anymore. Not as a partner, and not even for himself.

He kept saying _alphas don’t propose twice_ , but somewhere along the way he must’ve stopped believing it. He told everyone they were making shit up, and then he went and invented the biggest delusion himself. He can’t even be mad at Derek; not only did Derek not do anything wrong, but he was big enough to put aside his own anger at being rudely rejected for the good of his pack.

Derek loves his pack more than anything. Of course he would forgive Stiles for them. Of course he would look ahead and find a better path for all involved.

And Stiles—Stiles really outdid himself. He managed to break his own heart before he even knew what was at stake. He kept saying he didn’t want Derek, that there was nothing there, and well, congratulations, he made it a reality! Except, not for himself, because if there was nothing there for him, he wouldn’t be feeling so devastated right now. It’s like something inside him cracked open and pain is leaking everywhere.

He’s never been much of a crier, but now he really wishes he was alone in his own home so he could just let go. But he doesn’t have a home, and he can’t cry here. He bites his lip, tells himself to stop it. This is not the time and certainly not the place.

It’s been one thing after another lately, Rosie, Isaac, his home, Kate, Allison… and now Derek. It’s too much. He doesn’t want this anymore.

He wants—he wants to leave.

But of course he can’t, so he goes to sleep instead, in Derek’s home, in his guest suite, on his expensive bed, and when they knock on his door at dinnertime he pretends not to hear. He doesn’t want to sit across from him, eat his food, smile at his pack.

He can’t do it today.

The next morning, he corners his dad before breakfast and tells him they need to move out.

This isn’t working for him anymore.

-

Allison finally returns his texts and Stiles immediately invites himself over to her place to escape the suddenly stifling Hale house. He doesn’t know if it’s his imagination or what, but the whole household seems tense, everyone’s acting a little tentative around him, a little uneasy.

Allison, in comparison, is a breath of fresh air, a safe haven with her arms held out to him, her ever-smiling face promising good cheer, good news, and good vibes all around. Except, she does seem a bit tired.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Stiles accuses her, handing her the coffee he got for her on the way.

“Eh,” she says, leading the way into her apartment. “It’s been an eventful week.”

“I’ll say,” Stiles agrees. He’s the one with the burnt-out husk of a house to prove it. “How are you doing though, really? I know you and Kate used to be close.” It was a long time ago, but Kate is her family and he knows Allison always looked up to her.

“I’m okay,” she tells him. “I promise.” She pushes a plate of cookies towards him and pulls at the end of her braid nervously. “I… have things to tell you, but I don’t know where to start.”

“You know what they always say,” Stiles says, getting nervous himself. “Start at the beginning.” He takes a sip of his coffee and burns his tongue. “Though I think that’s super boring. Start at the end, maybe.”

At least he can still make Allison smile. That’s something. “Okay,” she says, smiling mischievously. “Derek and I just came back from a week-long stakeout to find Kate. _Surprise._ ”

Coffee comes out of Stiles’ nose.

Allison laughs at him for a really excessively long time.

Once the mess is wiped away, she tells him the story of Derek contacting her, the two of them setting out on Kate’s trail, finding her in a mountain cabin, and watching the cabin until the authorities come and get her.

It’s unreal. Each part of it is unbelievable on its own; put altogether it’s downright a fairytale—the original twisted kind that Disney wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

“Why—why would Derek ask you along? No offense, but you’re not exactly his favorite person.”

“I know, right?” Allison says, leaning back in her seat. “I thought he was crazy at first, but then it occurred to me, in his own weird way, he was offering me a chance to prove myself.”

Stiles huffs indignantly. “You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

She shrugs. “Maybe not, but I _am_ going to have to earn people’s trust now.”

Stiles recalls his own words to his dad. Argents are a brand. When one of them turns out to be a murderer, everyone in the family’s going to be affected by the public opinion. He heaves a sigh. “It’s not fair.”

“No, but—I appreciated it. At least now I’m the one who brought her to justice. My side in all this is etched permanently into the public record.”

They stare at each other, both their lives derailed by Kate, and Stiles reaches for her hand. She smiles her appreciation.

“And you know, I think Derek needed someone there with him. I got the feeling that he didn’t trust himself not to confront her on sight.”

“That’s fair,” Stiles says, going back to his coffee. He would’ve wanted to take a whack at her himself.

“He’s a good man.”

“I know.” Stiles doesn’t need convincing. In fact, if someone could convince him otherwise, it would be a kindness right now. “You two were together all that time?”

“For the most part, yeah.”

“And you didn’t kill each other?”

She chuckles. “I never hated him, you know. That was you.”

“That’s true,” Stiles agrees. Allison is such a generous, soft-hearted person. It would be a nice change if she could hate someone with him once in a while. “So, how exactly did you pass the time?”

“We talked,” Allison says. Stiles tries to imagine it but no, he really can’t see it. “I think we’re sort of friends now.”

Oh, isn’t that just lovely. More mixing between their families is exactly what Stiles was looking for. “I’m not letting him steal you,” he warns her.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

Stiles doesn’t mention Scott, and Allison seems grateful. He understands now; the reminders aren’t cute or kind. It’s a constant heartache that people won’t let time scab over. Instead, Allison talks to him about work, about wanting to convince her dad into separating their business from Gerard’s. She wants a do-over or she doesn’t think she’ll be able to continue working there.

It does make sense to Stiles to rebrand, so to say, and he knows Allison means it; it’s not just words or an image problem to her. She wants to do better. She wants to live up to what her family was supposed to be.

As always, he’s proud to be her best friend, and when he walks out of her door, he finds himself surprisingly proud of Derek as well.

He not only stopped Kate for good, but he did it in a way that allowed him to keep his promise to Laura. He could’ve easily taken Scott with him when he left, but he chose to make amends with Allison instead. And when he came back, he didn’t ask for a pat on the back. He didn’t even mention it, in fact. He let everyone assume he was off making business deals or printing models or whatever it is architects do.

He’s a good man. A good alpha. A good leader.

And maybe, if Stiles can ever find a way to suppress this damned heartache, if he can ever manage to stomach the thought of having a front row seat to Derek’s next relationship… he can be happy being a part of Derek’s pack.

He resolves to consider it objectively and drives back to the Hale house.

-

By the time Stiles remembers their plans for the season, half of June is gone.

“We weren’t in the mood,” Lydia says when he asks about the inaugural ball. It was the first event they’d earmarked to attend.

“Shame about the quiche,” Stiles comments, catching Isaac’s eye. “Maybe we should get off our butts and make a batch of those ourselves.”

They’re on the back porch of the Hale house. Stiles feels super weird about hosting his friends there, but there’s no helping it when his friends don’t wait to be asked over and just show up.

Isaac sits up at his suggestion. “Really? You would?”

They could take over the kitchen for an hour or two. “I mean, no one’s using the kitchen, and—is it me or are they all avoiding me lately?” He appreciates the alone time, but it’s been unusual, to say the least.

Isaac’s face falls a little. “Scott heard you asking your dad to move out.”

Stiles groans. Way to appear ungrateful. “This is why, by the way,” he says. “I need to be able to talk to my dad without wolf ears present.”

“I’m sure they understand,” Lydia consoles him with a pat on the leg.

“I’m sure I sound like an ass,” Stiles mumbles.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Danny drawls, moving on from Stiles’ never-ending problems. “What’s next on the agenda?”

“The picnic?” Jackson says. “That’s a good one.” He nudges Stiles, making him raise his head from where he buried it in his hands. “Even Stiles likes the picnic.”

“Stiles is not allowed to make decisions anymore,” Stiles says. “Stiles sucks at life.”

“Oh, good,” Lydia says, clapping her hands. “I can make your decisions for you then. And my first call is that we’re _all_ going to the picnic!”

Stiles shares a look with Jackson. “I don’t think this is any better.”

“It’s better than sitting at home feeling sorry for yourself,” Jackson declares.

“Ha!” Stiles tells him. “Joke's on you, I don’t even have a home.”

-

The picnic is a low-key, fun affair as every year, and Stiles spends most of the day hanging out with his dad and Melissa, thinking of ways to Parent Trap them but in, like, a more adult and sophisticated way than he used to. They seem close as ever, but the spark he thought he saw between them back in the day is now dim.

It’s been a long time. He decides to take this as a good sign. It must mean he’ll get over his infatuation as well in a year or ten. It’s something to look forward to.

Lunch is chicken and pineapple skewers, and there’s ice cream after. Allison arrives late but brings a cooler filled with bottles of homemade peach sangria, sending them scrambling to find glasses and Solo cups to enjoy it before it gets warm. Erica stops by and brings a bagful of candy for Stiles, which is now a tradition apparently. Danny and Jackson dare Stiles into a hula hoop battle at one point, which Danny wins by a really embarrassing margin. Isaac cries from laughing at Stiles.

Stiles dozes off and only wakes up when someone clutches at his hand, squeezing hard enough to bruise.

“Wha—” he mumbles, pushing up on an elbow, and finds Lydia’s hand around his, her eyes fixed on the designated dancing area.

It takes him a moment and some blinking, but he finally sees what got her so excited. Allison’s arms are around Scott’s neck, and he’s clutching at her waist. It’s like a movie moment, her purple sundress swinging, feet in the air, lights twinkling around them, as if the whole place was staged just for the two of them to reunite.

It’s sweet and touching and a little nauseating.

And then he sees Derek watching them from the other side of the park, leaning against a tree, smiling, and thinks, yeah, _I love every damn sweet, touching, nauseating bit of this._

“I take it you made this happen,” Stiles says, coming up from behind him and taking a seat under the tree.

Derek joins him on the ground without a pause. “They made it happen. I just stopped getting in the way.”

They watch Scott and Allison dance. Scott says something. Allison throws her head back and laughs.

“She’s so happy,” Stiles observes. “I can’t imagine ever being that happy.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, what, like you can? They’re a different breed, those two. Pure and goodhearted.”

“Yes, you _are_ quite evil.”

“I see you’re finally figuring me out.”

Derek chuckles. “Not even close, I assure you.”

Songs change, but Scott and Allison continue dancing in each other’s arms. Derek seems content just to sit there. Stiles has too many clashing urges to actually follow any of them.

“Thank you,” he says finally, because that’s the one that’s been buzzing the most under his skin. “For, you know, taking a chance on her.” Among other things.

“I trust your judgment,” Derek says. He’s said that before, but Stiles doesn’t remember it making his heart thump so hard the last time. “And you were right.”

“I often am,” Stiles says.

“I’ve noticed,” Derek agrees.

Stiles meets his eyes and can’t look away.

How dare this man be everything Stiles didn’t know he wanted? What’s he supposed to do with this now?

“I’m cold,” Stiles says, tearing his eyes away. He rubs his arms for effect. “Forgot my hoodie. I think I’ll call it a night.”

Except they’re going the same way this time, and Derek, being the flawless person that he is, gave his car keys to Scott. So Stiles ends up driving them home. Twenty minutes alone in a car with Derek, what could go wrong?

His knuckles are white the whole way. Derek stares at the side of his face, opens his mouth, and then seems to lose his nerve and turn back to the window without a word. Five minutes later he’s back, licking his lips, getting ready to talk, and then—nothing.

Stiles pretends not to notice that it keeps happening. They ride in silence.

He thinks he knows what Derek wants to ask him.

He thinks… he doesn’t want to say no when he does.


	13. Chapter 13

# 13

> _ “I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.” _

It’s a Saturday and Stiles is teaching Cora how to make focaccia.

This is the fourth of the fifteen recipes she’s picked to master, which Stiles agreed to teach her in exchange for dance lessons. He’s learning tango, while she ends up making half their dinner every day; it’s a great bargain for Stiles. And spending more time with Cora isn’t exactly a chore. She’d be his favorite Hale if he wasn’t kinda maybe a lot in love with her brother.

They’re about to put the bread in the oven when Stiles hears a commotion at the door. He doesn’t think anything of it; there’s always a commotion at the door here. Someone coming, someone going, it’s busier than Al’s Diner some days. What makes him pause is the way Cora freezes up, obviously listening for something.

“What’s up?”

Cora shakes it off. “Nothing. Alpha Crawford’s here for Derek.”

That’s odd, Stiles thinks, but refrains from commenting. Werewolf business is out of his prying comfort zone. Maybe it’s normal that she shows up unannounced. Maybe she did tell Derek she was coming. For all Stiles knows, Derek invited her.

He’s cleaning up in the kitchen when Derek walks her into the room and Stiles sees Ava and Amelia’s mother for the first time. He thinks he could’ve picked her out of a lineup by the haughty expression on her face alone. She’s in her fifties, blonde hair streaked with white pulled up into a neat bun. Her tweed pantsuit probably costs more than Stiles’ Jeep and she’s wearing honest-to-god gloves in June. She looks around the room with disinterest, and her eyes slide over Stiles without a pause as if he doesn’t exist. She probably assumes he’s the help.

Cora, she notices. “Oh, my dear, we’ve missed you so! Your brother has no manners, taking you so far away from all your friends!”

Cora responds respectfully but her smile doesn’t seem to reach her eyes. At one point, Stiles catches her using the patented Hale eyebrow technology, appearing to have a whole conversation with her brother with just their eyebrows. Derek doesn’t even glance at Stiles during all this, so Stiles makes himself as unobtrusive as possible, which, anyone who knows him will know, is a challenge.

Catherine Crawford studies the room, the view to the backyard, the breakfast nook, and then demands to be taken upstairs to continue her tour of the house. Apparently, she heard a lot of good things about the library. Derek leads the way.

‘Wow,’ Stiles mouths to himself. She’s really something. “Maybe I should just hang out in my room,” he mumbles to Cora, half expecting a rebuke. Instead, he finds her considering it.

“We could visit the Nemeton today,” she offers. Stiles would love to keep out of that woman’s way, but Cora’s nervous demeanor says _they_ would actually rather keep him out of her way and that’s somehow completely different.

She looks at the oven, seems to remember the bread. “Or maybe just a couple tours around the house for now…”

She keeps glancing up uneasily, listening for Ms. Crawford and Derek probably, and Stiles thinks he gets what the whole eyebrow conversation was all about. Stiles is apparently not the kind of company they’d like to present to their esteemed guest, which would explain why they didn’t even bother introducing him just now. Derek stood there like a doorstop as the woman looked through Stiles and acted like he wasn’t in the room.

“Come on,” Cora’s saying, trying to nudge him outside. “Fresh air will do us good.”

Stiles doesn’t roll his eyes but it’s a close thing. “You have to watch the bread. It burns easy.” He takes off his apron and hangs it. “I’ll just get out of your hair.”

“Stiles, no—”

“It’s alright,” he tells her, waving away her concerned look. “I meant to catch up with Allison anyway.”

He sits in the Jeep and gives himself a commiserating look in the mirror. He’s not anything to the pack right now, only a friend, a guest in their home. It’s not insulting to be asked to leave.

Okay, it’s a little insulting.

But these old packs can be intimidating; their leaders tend to be treated like royalty. Would Stiles be offended if the Queen of England came over and he was told to make himself scarce? Plus, Derek and Cora owe this woman a lot for taking them in. This is not a big deal. Everyone has friends they’d rather keep apart. Okay, not Stiles, but he knows people who do. Probably.

He drives to Allison’s place and completely forgets to call.

“What happened _now_?” he cries when she opens the door with red eyes. They saw each other only the day before. What on earth could’ve happened in less than 48 hours?

Allison laughs and sobs and throws herself into his arms.

“I’m getting married!”

Stiles gasps – she’s getting WHAT – and pushes her back by the shoulders to see her face. “Shut up! _Married_ married? Walking down the aisle, wearing a poofy dress married?”

“Yes!” Allison screams, pressing her hands against her eyes. Stiles can’t even tell if she’s laughing or crying anymore.

He ushers her into the living room and dumps her on the couch.

“When did this happen?”

Allison locates a tissue in the mess of her coffee table and wipes her nose loudly. “This morning. Look!” She holds up her hand to show her ring.

And that’s the biggest diamond Stiles has ever seen in person. “Wow,” he says, looking at it from different angles. It sparkles like a—well, a diamond. “It’s beautiful,” he comments. He actually has no opinion on diamond rings, but it makes Allison beam. “Where’s your fiancé then?” He’s surprised they’re not fucking like a couple of engaged bunnies right now.

“He went to talk to my dad,” she says, sniffling. “It’s so—” She takes a deep breath, centering herself. “It’s surreal, isn’t it? A couple of months ago I was sure he wouldn’t ever look me in the eye again, and now—we’re _getting married_!”

A couple months ago, Stiles had a home, and he wasn’t in love with a werewolf who clearly doesn’t want to introduce him to his rich, snooty surrogate aunt. Or if he was in love back then, at least his subconscious was kind enough to keep it under wraps and not leak feelings everywhere.

But this isn’t about him.

“I’m so happy for you.”

Allison laughs and more tears fall down her cheeks. “I’m so ridiculously happy! It’s too much!” She can’t seem to stop laughing. “I wish everyone could be this happy! I wish you could have a Scott of your own!”

“If you gave me forty Scotts, I couldn’t be as happy as you.” He kisses her on the side of her head. She’s literally the best person he’s ever known. She deserves this. “Although, I’d have my very own Scott football team, substitutes and all. Or, ooh, Scott dance troupe!”

Allison chuckles. It’s been so long since Stiles has seen her this happy, the sight of it makes his heart trip in his chest. It hasn’t been a particularly joyful year for any of them, but this can make up for a lot.

“He doesn’t care about Kate,” she tells him, eyelashes wet. “He doesn’t care that I’m an alpha. He doesn’t care that I may yet have to walk away from my inheritance.” She shrugs, her face glowing. “He just wants _me_.”

“Of course he does,” Stiles says with confidence. “You’re the best. I keep telling you.”

“Thank you,” she says and it’s clear from her face that she doesn’t mean just for the compliments. “You’re the reason this all happened, you know.”

Okay, now, that’s just not true. “What did _I_ do?”

“Derek didn’t change his mind out of nowhere.”

“Oh, well. In that case, I’d insult and reject alphas any day for your happiness.”

Allison doubles over and laugh-cries into her hands. Stiles rubs her head. Poor thing, it’s like a happiness breakdown.

“You wanna be alone? I could go?”

She grabs his hand without looking and holds it tight enough to hurt. “No, stay.”

Stiles wonders if bringing more people into this would help, or would she lose it for every new person? It’s worth a try. “What do you say to an impromptu engagement lunch? You could dress up; we can invite the guys?”

“Oh, my god, yes!” she yells, eyes wide and manic. “I haven’t even called Lydia!”

“I’ll handle it,” he tells her. “You go, get dressed.”

She stumbles towards her bedroom.

Stiles grabs his phone and dials Jackson. He’s not crazy enough to contact Lydia directly. Let Jackson handle the banshee. He’s the one who married her.

-

It’s a great lunch, with great friends, sharing great news. Stiles forgets all about Catherine Crawford until he drives back to the Hale house and is greeted by her chauffeured town car. His eyebrows climb all the way up to his hair at the sight – that’s a big damn car – and he hesitates to get out of the Jeep.

He should’ve stayed at Lydia’s. The last thing he wants is to make a nuisance of himself.

He turns away from the house and starts walking toward the woods. They should be eating dinner right now; he could at least skip the meal and come back later, around the time the pack tend to disappear into separate rooms.

He’s almost at the tree line when someone behind him calls, “Mr. Stilinski, I presume.”

Stiles stops, turns around.

It’s Ms. Crawford, of course, and she’s staring at him with a less than friendly gaze. Predatory, almost. She doesn’t scare Stiles, but the intention of it gives him pause.

He nods his head, once, deliberately, and calls back, “Alpha Crawford.” He’s never once used _alpha_ as an honorific in his life – after all, no one calls him Omega Stilinski unless they’re trying to insult him somehow – but he doesn’t want to put a foot wrong with her and this is how the old-school packs do it.

Not that it’s doing him any good. She’s not impressed by him in the slightest.

“My daughters told me all about you,” she says, taking two leisurely steps forward. “I hear I have you to thank for that lovely dinner.”

Her words are nice, but the tone is dripping malice. Stiles doesn’t respond.

“I was on my way to a friend’s wedding—” Stiles figures he’s meant to be able to tell that’s a lie. “—and I wanted to stop by to have a little chat with you.”

“Me?” What could she have to talk to _him_ about?

“Yes,” she says, a mocking smile playing on her lips. “I heard about Scott’s impending nuptials and wanted to congratulate him in person as well. Such a lovely boy he is.”

This woman, who presumably leads a very busy life, found out about Scott intending to ask Allison to marry him, dropped everything, flew to California, hired a car, and came here to bother Stiles about it. She didn’t acknowledge him before, so she clearly wanted to talk to him alone. It’s… insane.

“You see, Stiles, the Hales and the Crawfords go way back,” she continues, not at all bothered by his lack of response. “Talia and I always wished for a more permanent connection between our packs. When she was killed, I didn’t hesitate to take Laura and Derek in. I helped them settle and grow. I always thought they were good kids; under my guidance, they became even stronger than before.”

Stiles tilts his head, listens, but he can feel the annoyance buzzing under his skin. There’s a sense of ownership in her tone when she’s talking about Derek. Stiles doubts his mother ever intended _this_.

He breathes deep and tries to calm himself down. He’s not arguing with another alpha. Let her talk and fuck off from his life. As if anybody cares what she thinks.

“Now, Scott,” she says, dismissive, “he can be excused for his choice of bride. He’s a bitten wolf. He doesn’t know any better. But Derek and Cora need to be more discerning when it’s their turn. They have the Hale name to consider, the Hale territory, the honor and tradition of their ancestors. They need to choose partners who’ll protect their interests and enrich their packs. They can’t just… follow every urge.”

She gives him a once-over and raises an eyebrow. He’s the urge, he’s meant to understand. And even though she’s wrong about where his relationship currently stands with Derek, he can’t help but feel outraged. Not even for himself, but _Derek_ deserves better than this—this viper pretending to think of him as a son, while openly making plans for his wealth and territory.

Ava was always meant for Derek; Stiles can see that now. And Amelia was probably hanging around for Scott.

Except, none of it worked out the way Catherine Crawford planned.

“You see, _Stiles_ —” She says his name as if it’s a joke. “—sometimes people need a little push in the right direction. And for you, that direction is _away_ from the Hale Pack.”

She points towards the road helpfully.

“Trust me, it won’t come to anything either way,” she says, softening her eyes into something resembling a compassionate person. “They have friends who won’t allow them to make the wrong choice. And if they insist, there are ways of _convincing_ them that I personally won’t hesitate to employ.”

Stiles wonders what she means by that but decides that he probably doesn’t want to know.

“You’d want me to stay your friend,” she says, looking pretty comfortable with where her one-sided conversation is going. “Nobody wants me as an enemy.”

Stiles nods his understanding. “I don’t doubt it.”

“I’m glad you see it my way.”

She’s smirking at him, thinking she’s won. Stiles should let her think that, except—he really can’t. He’s constitutionally incapable of shutting up and letting things be.

“I _don’t_ see it your way,” he says calmly. “But I see what you’re trying to do. Good effort.”

“You’re going to test me, are you, child?” She tilts her head down, lets her shoulders straighten. He got her mad. “Do you even know who I am?”

“I know who you are,” Stiles tells her. “You’re a sad old woman stuck in a past life.”

She starts breathing hard and yelling, “You have no respect for the Hale name, no respect for what it stands for!”

“Not if it stands for _this_ ,” Stiles says, gesturing at the scene between them. “I respect Derek and I respect Cora. You do not factor into my relationships _at all_.”

“Insolent child! You are determined to make a joke out of them, then. The Hale name will be in disgrace. Human _nobody_ omegas marrying in! Who will align themselves with such a pack! They’ll be weakened, pathetic, lose all respectability! Is that what you’re hoping to accomplish?”

Her yelling is grating on his already frayed nerves, and he’s barely holding onto the last vestiges of his patience. “Insult me all you want,” he tells her in a carefully modulated tone, “I do not answer to you. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“You will listen to me,” she growls, eyes blazing red.

Stiles feels something in him snap.

His fury ignites and catches in his stomach, churning and growing until it’s not just one of him but hundreds, thousands; all angry, all ready to strike. His mind registers the whispers a moment after the alpha seems to hear them, murmurs and rustling coming from behind him, low at first but rising like a swarm of bees flying their way. He feels power – pure, unadulterated power – fill his veins and burn him from the inside, pushing him up with the force of it but also keeping him down, grounded, as if he’s grown roots.

The energy has a life of its own; it’s so much bigger than Stiles, strong enough to dissolve her into nothing with the flick of a wrist, to raze the town into the ground with a thought. It’s delicious and seductive and addicting, but—it’s not what he wants. Stiles pushes it down.

He theorized this might be possible, that the Nemeton could lend him power, but he never considered it seriously, and now it’s here, it’s happening, and over what?

This nothing of a woman who thinks she’s the boss of everyone.

He looks at her and sees surprise and fear written plainly in her face. The woods groan behind him, a low, rumbling thunder emanating from the ground, portent of an earthquake to come. Stiles relishes in the sound. He’s not alone, never alone, and _she_ is insignificant.

His anger dissipates.

Derek appears on the porch, far enough away that he probably can’t hear the two of them talking. But the forest wasn’t exactly being subtle with the show of support; the whole town must’ve heard _that_.

Stiles lets the power flow down his body and into the earth.

He nods his head toward the house. “If you have anything to say, you can say it to Derek. He’ll listen or not, it’s none of my business. I’m not interested in you or your antiquated opinions.” He gestures down at her claws, forgotten by her sides. “And if you’re looking for a fight, maybe pick someone more your speed next time.”

She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t move.

Stiles finds that he doesn’t care.

He turns around and walks into the woods.

-

He has words with the Nemeton about pushing power into people without warning, and the Nemeton has words with him about letting puny werewolves get to him enough that the whole forest awakens to see what’s got him so worked up.

No one was at their best just now, they both agree.

The thing is, Stiles hasn’t been at his best since he met Derek Hale. It’s one misstep after another; their story’s written in misunderstandings, misrepresentations, and mistruths. And all the while, the universe seems to delight in throwing them together just to watch them dance their awkward, painful tango that never goes anywhere.

Stiles paces and thinks and wonders; is there any chance of saving it? Can he possibly make up for weaponizing a forest against one of Derek’s closest living kin? And on the day Derek gave his permission for Scott to propose to Allison, too; because surely that ring was bought with Hale money, the McCalls never had a diamond budget.

Now Stiles has gone and done it. He got clever with yet another alpha, which never works out for him in the end, and yet he can’t stop himself from baiting and mocking and, oh yeah, threatening. That’s a new one for him. Way to go, Stiles. Threaten one of the most powerful werewolf pack leaders for insulting you, because that’s the way to win at life.

He’ll have to make up for this, somehow.

It’s a couple hours before he walks back to the house, and by then all the lights are off for the night. The town car is gone, thank the lord, and only the usual pack cars are parked in the driveway. His dad doesn’t seem to be home yet; Stiles can’t remember what his schedule was like for this week.

His feet won’t let him go in.

He paces a wide circle around the property and finds himself drawn to the stream as usual. The willow’s roots give off a warm and familiar energy under him, so he sits cross-legged and enjoys the glow of it.

It feels very old.

Not Nemeton old, of course, but easily a couple generations when it was alive and who knows how long has passed since it fell. It’s groggy, but Stiles can feel the personality under it, the history. It’s not like feeling a seed under the earth. Seeds are only potentials, there’s nothing to communicate with in there. Roots are a different story altogether. They often remember being a tree. Some of them want to come back and see the sun again. The willow feels like it could be convinced.

Stiles wouldn’t attempt waking an old tree on his own normally, but the Nemeton’s power is still coursing through his body and looking for somewhere to go. It’s just a fraction of the old tree’s magic but to Stiles it feels like a live wire down his spine and it _itches_.

This seems like the easiest solution.

Besides, the phantom of the willow has been taunting him for weeks now and it feels meant to be. People apologize with flowers, don’t they? Stiles could apologize with a tree.

He extends his mind and his magic, connects with the barely-there consciousness, and starts talking.

The willow isn’t ready to respond yet, but that’s alright. Stiles can hold a one-sided conversation going for days, and tonight he really has a lot to say. He talks about the land, the town, the preserve, the individual trees he knows in the woods, and then moves on to the people, his friends, his family, the Hales. Trees have long lives and they rarely remember individuals from the past, but the Hales have been here for generations, tied to the natural magic of the land, so they’re known to the older creatures that live in the woods; the willow seems to be no exception.

Stiles talks about how it’s fitting that she be here now, a tree that’s known for renewal and growth and immortality, in the right place at the right time to help make the Hale Pack whole once again. They could flourish together, protect the land together, make this a safe home for everyone, together.

His eyes are closed and he’s focused inward, but he can almost see the willow grow, reach up to the sky and spread out, limbs extending, extending, and then relaxing down over the stream, leaves gradually emerging. It has a beautiful shape, willows always do, and Stiles excitedly shares his thoughts on what the land around it could look like when it’s all done, with flowering plants attracting bees, old trees and shrubs woken up to join them.

He then realizes he’s started talking about Derek, how he’s lost everything here but still came back. How he’s now in Beacon Hills and looking to grow his own roots into the land. Trees don’t care about human affairs, but they know about intentions, they understand good and bad, and Stiles does his best to introduce Derek as a man of honor, as a leader who puts others first. And it’s not difficult, certainly not. Derek may have appeared to lack refinement from time to time, but he’s never failed where it counts.

He’s been quite perfect, honestly. He got rejected and insulted, and yet he responded by coming back to take a chance on Erica and Boyd, random strangers thrown his way by Stiles, on Isaac when he needed help, on Allison even though she’s an Argent…

Stiles would rather not consider what he himself has done in return but focus on what he’ll do instead. He will not be saying no to Derek Hale, that’s for damn sure. If he wants Stiles as emissary? Stiles will take it. If he wants Stiles as the pack cook? He’ll take that as well. It’s not even about being involved in the pack’s future, but he just can’t handle the thought of seeing rejection in Derek’s face again.

A gust of wind blows, and leaves brush Stiles’ cheek. He hears the birds before he opens his eyes and sees the pink edges of the sunrise.

The willow looks majestic.

Stiles looks up and up and feels dizzy; he didn’t expect it to be this tall—or himself to be this drained.

“Stiles?” he hears someone ask, and footsteps pad towards him on the soft ground.

It’s Derek.

Stiles wipes his hands nervously on his pants and only then realizes they’re covered in dirt. He doesn’t even want to think about what he looks like right now.

“Hey,” he says, clearing his throat when something sticks. “Uh, good—morning?”

“Have you been out all night?”

Stiles rubs the back of his neck and rains dirt down his shirt— _dammit_. “I think so?”

Derek is looking at him in what Stiles assumes is horrified fascination and then at the tree because it’s big and it’s there, not like anyone’s going to miss it.

“You…” Derek trails off and looks pained.

Ugh, Stiles knew this was going to be terrible. “I’m sorry.”

“What? What are you sorry for?”

Stiles flails a hand, and then makes himself very deliberately _stop doing that_. “Last night. With your guest. I shouldn’t have lost my cool. That wasn’t okay.”

Derek seems uncomfortable, and who wouldn’t be? “I tried to keep her away…” he starts, and Stiles interrupts him before this can get even more embarrassing.

“I know. I shouldn’t’ve come back.”

“That’s not what I—”

“But look!” Stiles says, gesturing at the tree behind him. “It’s an apology tree!”

Derek looks at him, looks at the tree… It’s hard to translate his facial expressions, they’re usually minor variations on the same theme: He’s aggrieved or distressed or severely embarrassed by being in Stiles’ presence. But that’s alright, Stiles is optimistic for the future; he tends to grow on people.

“You made a tree…”

“Well, no,” Stiles says, rubbing his hair and getting dirt in there as well. He wipes his hands on his thighs again. “I don’t _make_ things. She was already there, just underground, and I—kinda talked her into growing.” He makes a sort of _ta-da!_ gesture but Derek doesn’t seem to be in a _ta-da!_ mood. Which is only fair, really.

“Stiles…”

“Look, it’s sort of a thank you, for everything you’ve been doing, and a bit of an apology, for everything _I’ve_ been doing.” He glances around nervously, gestures at the empty land around them. “I thought I’d get you guys started on landscaping, that’s all.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Derek says. “And I don’t even know why you’re thanking me—”

“Uh—Allison, Isaac, Kate, Erica? Ring any bells?

“If anything, I should be thanking _you_.” Derek’s eyebrows are drawn together; he looks confused. “You talked me out of making mistakes and missing opportunities, and—you solved the case when even law enforcement couldn’t—Stiles, I—”

Stiles watches him look away, palming the nape of his neck, and feels lighter somehow. “You realize we’re arguing over who’s more awesome?” Relief floods his mind and warms his cheeks. “This is going much better than I expected.”

Derek doesn’t seem relieved. His chest is rising and falling with deep breaths, head shaking absently from side to side. “Stiles… I don’t…” He takes a miniscule step back. “I’m not supposed to…”

“Not supposed to what?”

Derek looks at him and his eyes are wounded, fraught; Stiles desperately wants to fix whatever’s breaking his heart. “I’m not supposed to ask again.”

Stiles instinctively takes a step closer and the whole world _tilts_. “Okay, I need to sit…” His fingers snatch the hem of Derek’s shirt on the way down and Derek kneels with him, one hand wrapped around Stiles’ elbow, warm and solid.

They breathe in silence, and Stiles feels his heart shivering in his chest. Could Derek mean… But what else could he… He pulls his glance up by force and meets Derek’s eyes—and _there it is_.

“Alphas don’t propose twice,” Stiles mumbles.

“Not supposed to,” Derek says. “But I—” He tightens his jaw, exhales sharply. “I messed up the first time. I didn’t understand what it meant, what it would cost me.”

Stiles feels like laughing. He’s woozy from working magic through the night, and now Derek’s words are making him feel high. “You know,” he says, smiling, “omegas aren’t supposed to propose _at all_.”

Derek stares at him, frozen.

“But I’ve never been one for tradition.”

Stiles has never in his life been as nervous as he is in this moment, but also; he’s never seen a face he loves more, and he’s never wanted anything as much as he wants Derek to be his.

“I love you,” he says, and it’s easy, a relief to finally say it out loud. “More than I ever thought possible. And I know I said—” His arm tries to flail about all the things he never should’ve said, but he draws it back down to behave. “Well, you know what I said, but I didn’t know you then, and I’ve been falling in love with you and it keeps getting worse and—and making me grow trees and piss off arsonists and awaken whole forests to defend your honor—”

Derek is smiling so wide, Stiles can see his bunny teeth. His smile is brighter than the sunrise clearing the treetops. “Isn’t there supposed to be a question in there?”

“See, you’re getting better at it,” Stiles quips, smiling back, but then sobers up because he honestly has no earthly clue how to ask this. “When you asked, you said—” he gestures vaguely, “—the traditional words and I thought they were literally the least romantic things I ever heard.”

“It wasn’t a particularly romantic proposal.”

“This is turning out to be no better, but at least there’s a tree now,” Stiles muses.

“You didn’t plan this.”

“Well, no. But I did spend the better part of the night talking to the willow about how much I love you, so there’s that. But that’s not the point—the words you used, you said _no one but you_ , and I thought _what a crock of shit_ —”

Derek chuckles.

“—but you know what? That’s literally where I am. _No one else will do_. I’m crazy about you. I’m desperately, stupidly in love with you. I can’t even imagine this happening to me twice in one lifetime, and honestly, _I don’t want it to_. I want _you_. And if you still—even after everything…? I just—really need you to put me out of my misery before I sic half the woods on the Crawford matriarch for suggesting you’d ever marry one of her daughters.”

“Stiles,” Derek says, chest shaking with suppressed laughter. “Will you marry me?”

Stiles beams at him. “Yes.”

They grin at each other, kneeling under the swinging willow branches, and birds sing around them like something out of a Disney movie.

“May I?” Derek murmurs, his hand hesitating a hair’s breadth away from Stiles’ cheek.

Stiles can barely breathe. He closes his eyes and leans into the touch.

The pull of a bond is right there under his skin.

He lets out a suspiciously wet sounding laugh at the feel of it.

“I knew it,” Derek says, running his thumb over Stiles’ cheekbone. “I knew it the first time I saw you at that ball.”

“Before or after you insulted me?”

“During, probably.” Derek brings their foreheads together, closes his eyes. “I didn’t even know what it was, but I knew it was there. You were wearing that dark green suit, and you were looking at me like—”

“Like I wanted to kill you?” Stiles hazards a guess. “I should’ve just slapped you then.” He lets his fingers trace the line of Derek’s throat, half expecting literal sparks to follow. “Would’ve saved us all this trouble.”

“I’m glad it happened this way,” Derek tells him. “I wasn’t ready for any of this. I didn’t deserve to have it back then.”

Stiles instinctively draws back to look at him. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. For years, I couldn’t see beyond my grief, and the Crawfords enabled my worst tendencies. I considered myself better than them, but I wasn’t, not really. I was just as conceited and self-centered. I hated the thought of being in love with you, I fought against it until I couldn’t anymore, and all that time, it never once occurred to me that you’d say no when I asked. Your wishes didn’t factor into my thinking at all until you looked me in the eye and told me I was full of shit.”

Stiles hugs him close and hides his face in Derek’s shoulder. He’s laughing, but it’s not funny, not really.

“I never thought you took anything I said seriously.”

Derek’s fingers stroke down the nape of his neck.

“I didn’t want to at first, but it kept playing over and over in my head. I thought about who I wanted to be and how I was acting and what you thought of me…” He hesitates for a moment, and then, “So I went to therapy, to try and figure myself out. I wanted to be better.”

Stiles pulls back to meet his eyes. He wants to say _I’m sorry_. And _I’m proud of you_. And _I love you_. But instead, he just leans in and kisses him.

-

Derek appears dazed when he draws back from the kiss—and it’s a good kiss, a series of good kisses, so good in fact that Stiles doesn’t understand why Derek wants to stop now.

“I should—” Derek swallows hard, jerks his eyes from Stiles’ lips, seemingly with great difficulty. “I should go talk to your dad.”

Well, that’s one way to ruin the mood.

“I see we’re getting our first fight out of the way already,” Stiles comments.

Derek looks adorably confused. “What—why?”

“I make my own decisions, you realize?”

“Oh, I know you make your own decisions, trust me. I’ve experienced your decisions.”

“Then where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“This isn’t just about us,” Derek says earnestly. “I’m going to be his family now. It’s a show of respect, and I’d kinda like to be on his good side.”

Stiles waves his concern away. “He likes you just fine. He gave me his blessing before there even was anything to bless.”

That seems to catch Derek by surprise. He clearly doesn’t know the sheriff well enough yet.

“He said you’re colorful.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

“Trust me, it’s good,” Stiles tells him. “My friends all like you. Allison’s marrying into your pack. You already adopted Isaac. Your sister owes me dance lessons. Our family’s good. It’s going to be okay.” Then he thinks better of making promises he can’t keep. “Well, Ms. Crawford’s probably gonna have an aneurism, but other than that, it’s all looking fine.”

Derek smiles warmly, playfully. “Then what do you suggest we do?”

“I could try standing up again,” Stiles mumbles, bracing one hand against the trunk of the tree. Derek helps him up and pulls him close against his side to keep him steady.

“Now?” he asks.

Stiles tilts his head to look up at the Hale house.

“Home,” he answers.

Derek presses a kiss against his temple. “Okay.”

They walk in together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the encouragement, guys. I've treasured every comment. <3
> 
> This story has two epilogues; 14 is the sappy SAPPY bonding bits, which you can easily skip if it's not your thing, 15 is a series of timestamps from their first couple of years together. (Eta: Though it has been argued that 15 is equally if not even more sappy, so what do I know.)


	14. Chapter 14

# 14

> _ “I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that he can spare from me. You are all to come to Pemberley at Christmas.” _

Stiles wakes up slowly, his dream chasing him towards consciousness and then disappearing into the ether.

“Mmm.” He rubs his cheek against the soft, soft pillow, and tries to place where he is.

His eyes snap open when he remembers: Derek.

And there he is, bedhead and all, staring at him.

“Morning,” Stiles mumbles.

“It’s afternoon.”

Eh. Same difference. “Have you been watching me sleep? That’s creepy-sweet.” His heart does cartwheels in his chest, confirming that it’s actually leaning more towards sweet than creepy.

Derek huffs out a small laugh. “Trust me, this doesn’t even register on the creepy meter.”

“That’s intriguing.” Stiles tucks a hand under his cheek. “Do I wanna know?”

Derek pauses, gives him a long look, like he’s thinking _do I want you to know_? And then he seems to come to a decision and rolls towards the nightstand to take something out of the drawer.

It’s a ribbon.

Stiles takes it from him, turns it in his hand. It’s wide and green, looks familiar. Derek is staring at him expectantly.

And then it clicks.

“You kept the ribbon from my basket.”

Derek brings his hand closer and takes a sniff. “Smells like you.” A kiss is pressed against his fingers before they’re released.

It’s like something out of a cheap romance novel, cheesy and ridiculous, and yet, Stiles has never experienced anything more moving. He draws Derek in – why would they ever stop touching – and Derek goes directly for his neck, pressing in and scenting him.

“You know,” Stiles says, running his fingers through Derek’s hair and wondering at where he is, “I thought you just wanted me as pack emissary.”

He feels Derek smile against his skin. “I don’t care if you’re the pack clown.”

“You already have Scott for that.”

Derek draws back to meet his eyes. “My pack loves you but… I’m still a very selfish man. I want you for myself.”

Stiles tries to breathe but his chest is so tight he can only softly pant. “Yeah?”

Derek seems to search his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Stiles pulls him into a messy kiss that goes on and on.

Derek kisses him like he’s been starving for it, and Stiles is perfectly okay with being devoured. When breathing becomes a problem and Stiles starts gasping, Derek moves down his neck, sucking kisses in a burning path and then resting his open mouth against the sensitive skin, breathing hot and wet against the base of his throat, his own chest heaving.

Stiles throws his head back and groans. He’d be embarrassed by the sounds he’s making but he’s beyond shame now, beyond rational thought. His legs spread open and he drags Derek closer until he’s half on top of him, his weight pinning Stiles to the mattress, one leg between Stiles’.

He can’t believe he gets to have this now. He’s allowed to touch Derek. He’s allowed to kiss him. Derek wants him to. And it’s a good thing Derek wants him as much as he does, because Stiles is so easy for this man, it’s bordering on outlandish. All those years of not being tempted by alphas and now he can’t keep his legs closed for half a day. Amazing.

“Your scent drives me crazy,” Derek tells him, nuzzling his cheek, his ear, and then his neck again. His hands are under Stiles’ shirt, burning their way up his sides. “I’ve been craving you…”

Stiles moans, pushes his hips up. They’ve left the creepy-sweet territory and are firmly in the creepy-hot zone. “Just—come here…” He tilts his head to catch Derek’s lips and they fall into another deep, wet kiss until Stiles starts to feel the pull of the bond, more insistent now, excited, impatient.

“We could just—”

“We shouldn’t—”

Oh. He doesn’t… _Oh_.

Stiles sits up, fixing his shirt uncomfortably and trying to catch his breath. He feels like someone threw a bucket of water over his head. “We shouldn’t?”

“I don’t mean…” Derek sighs, runs hand over his face. “Obviously we’re going to, but there’s no hurry. We haven’t even told anyone yet; we haven’t had sex…”

“Yes, obviously sex is going to be a big problem between us,” Stiles says, gesturing at the particularly excited parts of their anatomy.

“You don’t know what I’m into,” Derek quips, trying to joke his way out of it, but Stiles isn’t feeling like making light of this.

“I don’t think I’m going to care,” he says slowly, the implication being that maybe Derek might. Then his eyes catch on the green ribbon resting on Derek’s pillow and he tells himself to stop doubting him. There’s no reason to be insecure about this thing between them. They’re done with that now; they made it through.

He grabs Derek’s hand.

“I’m a little scared,” he admits, “that we’re going to walk out that door and something’s going to happen, and we just won’t—”

Derek’s face has melted into the softest, most affectionate expression. “I’ve loved you for a whole year now,” he says. “There were ghouls, and Crawfords, and Kate, and—I thought maybe William? And we screwed it up worse than they ever could anyway, but—did I once waver?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles says. “Did you?”

Derek kisses his knuckles. “I couldn’t. Not even when you said you despised me.”

Now he’s making shit up. “I do not remember saying that.”

“You did,” Derek insists, nodding. “And then you said I was the last man on earth you could ever love.”

“Oh, god.” Stiles palms his face. “See, _I_ could be the stupid thing that comes between us.” It’s a real possibility.

Derek waits for him to look back up and then says, “I would love to bond with you, right here, right now. But I jumped the gun before, and it hurt us both. I want to do it right this time.”

Stiles considers the options. They can walk out of this room hand in hand, announce an engagement, date for a couple of months, which would be interesting when they kind of already live together, or they could just—bond. And get on with their lives.

Maybe he _is_ jumping the gun, but he didn’t just meet Derek. He’s been wanting this for months now. He wants it to be done.

“I guess, I mean—it would be a chore, but we could just have sex right now,” he says with a chuckle. “But you realize it’s going to keep pulling at us and we’ll be resisting it all the way, and—look, I don’t really like the whole engagement announcements, parties, and ceremonies thing. I’d much rather let it happen.” He swallows, forces himself to admit, “And I’d feel better. I know we have nothing to worry about, but it’s been our pattern so far and I’d be expecting the other shoe to drop, like, every day.”

Derek closes his eyes and breathes. After a long pause, he says, “Do you know—do you even realize that I want to give you everything?”

What can you say to that?

“And I,” Stiles says, leaning forward to cup Derek’s face, “never _ever_ want to hurt you again.” He kisses Derek’s lips, and then his forehead. “So, if you need for us to wait, I will wait.”

“Wait?” Derek says, almost to himself. “I didn’t—I don’t want to _wait_.”

And Stiles is being tackled into the mattress by a very enthusiastic werewolf, showing him just how much he doesn’t like the idea of waiting.

-

There’s a very good chance that Stiles is going to keep kissing Derek until he physically can’t anymore.

He just can’t get enough of Derek’s solid weight on top of him, his stubble rubbing against his skin, his propensity for scenting Stiles everywhere… Stiles always thought he liked sex just fine, but it turns out he never had any idea—not until he touched the right person and a whole world of new wants and pleasures suddenly opened up.

The shirt he’d borrowed from Derek that morning is now somewhere on the floor, and the sweatpants, already loose, are making a break for it as well. Derek bites his shoulder, nuzzles his arm, and kisses down his chest, his hands slithering under Stiles to grab handfuls of his ass, pushing him—

A door slams downstairs, and Stiles jerks.

He’s breathing hard and his brain is all foggy but— “Isn’t your room soundproof?”

“No.” Derek is looking at him like he’s lost his mind.

“Ugh.” Stiles shoves him off and yanks up his sweatpants. They immediately slide back down to his hips. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What?”

Stiles flails. “Werewolves! I’m not having sex with you with everyone listening in!”

“They know better than to listen in,” Derek defends his pack.

“Have you even met Erica Reyes?”

He doesn’t seem to have a response to that, because yeah, they’ve all met Erica Reyes. This won’t do. Stiles looks around for a pen, a pen, he needs a—and _there_ —there’s a desk.

Derek is sitting up in bed, half naked, looking thoroughly debauched and incredibly confused. “What are you doing?”

“Shush,” Stiles tells him. He’s concentrating.

He found a fancy drawing pen that’s going to be ruined when used on a wall probably, but sacrifices have to be made. He draws the sigil on the wall between the bed and the door; he’s used it before, so he’s pretty sure he knows how it goes but—he considers it for a moment, adds another symbol, steps back—

And finds himself pressed flush against Derek’s chest.

“What’s this?”

“Do you have a knife?”

“No?”

Stiles turns to him, after a moment’s consideration takes his hand. “How sharp are your claws?”

Derek pulls his hand back. “Why?”

Well, that’s sweet. Unnecessary but still. He shows him the tip of his finger. “I need a little blood.”

“Does it have to be yours?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, smiling. “It needs to be mine. Not that I don’t appreciate the offer.”

Derek takes his finger and puts it in his mouth, and somehow, between one second and the next, a direct line forms from there to Stiles’ cock and he completely loses his ability to breathe.

He gasps when Derek releases his finger and doesn’t even notice the blood until Derek says, “Fangs are sharper.”

Yeah, and they’re… unexpectedly hot.

He tilts Derek’s head and licks his lips at the sight of them, before thinking _screw it_ and giving into the urge to kiss him around his sharp, pointy, surprisingly sexy teeth.

He feels magnetized; it’s so weirdly difficult to put space between their bodies. “Okay, okay,” he says, making himself let go. “Hold that thought.”

Blood, he was about to—he squeezes around the cut on his finger and presses it against the sigil. He’s done this a million times, but perhaps not when he was already so overwhelmed, which is the only reason he can think of for his simple magical push to turn into an avalanche. It’s visible, which it shouldn’t be, and pulses out of his chest in waves.

Stiles grimaces as he watches it disperse around the room.

No harm done, probably. Hopefully.

“Did it work?” he asks Derek.

Derek tilts his head, listens. “Yeah,” he says, looking impressed. “Neat trick.”

“Yeah, well. It does the jo—”

He loses his train of thought when Derek takes his sluggishly bleeding finger into his mouth again and wraps his tongue around it.

“Oh,” Stiles breathes. “Right. Um. Bed?”

Derek picks him up and gently deposits him on it.

-

Clothes have been divested, lube has been located and applied, liberally, and Stiles has already come once, but he wants more, he wants everything.

He’s never giving this up. He’ll weaponize a million forests if he has to.

Derek pushes up on trembling arms and studies his face, looking for hesitation, as if that’s possible at this point, as if Stiles hasn’t been gone beyond saving since the very first touch, and then he’s pressing in, a gentle, slow pressure, making Stiles keen and lose his breath and—

He grabs Derek around the neck and kisses him, pushing up with his hips and wrapping a leg around him to pull them even closer. He feels the bond trying to snap into place, they haven’t let it yet, Stiles has been waiting for the right time, but this doesn’t feel like it either, not yet, and it’s already too much without it, are they even going to survive this? Stiles has no idea, and he doesn’t even care right now.

Derek is a – beautiful, captivating – wreck.

Stiles runs his hands down Derek’s arms, his sweat-slicked back, cradles the back of his head, and thinks, _it’s okay, take what you want_. Stiles isn’t a delicate person, he can take it, but Derek doesn’t seem to agree. He’s holding back.

“Tell me what you want,” Stiles begs. “ _Please_.”

Derek, desperate, on edge, pants, “Can I—Can we—” Then he places his teeth gently at the base of Stiles’ neck where a mating bite would go on a werewolf.

_Oh._

Bonding is deeply personal. There’s no one right way to do it. For natural bonds sex is a popular way to seal it, but as long as there’s the same intent behind it, a kiss or a touch works just as well. Werewolves traditionally seal it with a bite. The bite, in fact, is said to be so powerful that bonds never fail between two wolves.

It never even occurred to Stiles, he never thought about it, but now he suddenly wants it more than anything.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Yeah, I want that—we should do that.”

Derek lets out a rumbling growl and Stiles laughs, clutching him. How does he get to have this? How is this his life suddenly? And what even is this man; so sexy, so precious, so ridiculously in love with Stiles that his brain can’t compute the enormity of it.

“God, I love you,” he whispers as Derek scents his neck, licking his sweat, purring with contentment.

Stiles wonders if he should’ve turned around, that may’ve been easier, but no, Derek doesn’t seem to mind. He moves Stiles’ legs to a more comfortable position and snaps his hips, making him gasp, and then—there are blunt teeth against the side of Stiles’ throat, biting, claiming, and the bond nudges at his mind, asking for entry.

Stiles embraces it.

-

They say there’s always a high after a new bond, but this is ludicrous.

He has Derek’s chest under him, Derek’s arms around him, and Derek’s mind comfortably settled inside him, and every worry, every concern, every bit of anxiety he ever had has disappeared.

The link between the two of them is strong enough that Stiles can tell he’ll never again doubt how Derek feels about him—how he feels about anything, really. Right now, Derek is hungry, Stiles knows, but he doesn’t want to move because he’s enjoying holding Stiles too much. He’s obsessed with Stiles’ scent, and loves his longer hair apparently, which is good because Stiles has decided to keep it.

“You know what I wanna do right now?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Derek breathes out.

“You want to?”

“Yeah,” Derek says again.

“Can you?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you capable of saying anything else?”

“No.”

Stiles tugs him up with a laugh, straddles his lap, and kisses his mouth, slowly, leisurely, wrapping his arms around Derek tight until they feel like one body, one mind. He can stay in this moment forever, he thinks, as he takes Derek in, reveling in feeling his pleasure from the inside out.

He finds a wrenching, deliberate rhythm and rides Derek like they have all the time in the world.

Because they do.

-

The bite mark looks dark and raised in the mirror. It really speaks to a possessive part of Stiles on a very base level. It’s like tattooing your name on someone. Not subtle but very effective.

“Would it scar if I gave you one of these?”

Derek kisses his fingers tracing the bond mark. “No.”

“Well, that’s not fair,” Stiles grumbles. He feels rather than hears Derek’s laugh.

“I’ll wear a ring.”

That’s not the same though, is it.

Unless…

The ribbon is sitting innocently on the nightstand, waiting for him. Stiles brings it back to the bathroom and ties it around Derek’s bicep. Derek’s watching him carefully, but he doesn’t ask what he’s doing, which makes Stiles adore him even more, if that’s possible.

He wraps his fingers around the ribbon and says, “This is gonna take a while.”

“In that case…” Derek herds him towards the tub he’s been filling.

The water is hot, and it releases a scent of flowers as it sloshes around them. Derek settles between Stiles’ legs and leans his head back to rest on his shoulder. They let their muscles relax as Stiles works on weaving a tattoo in his mind. He’s never done this before, but the sentiment behind the ribbon has power and it feels like it should work.

He pours things into the spell on a whim. Protection magic has been at the forefront of his mind, so that makes it in there, and roots of the many trees he plans to grow around the property start to knot themselves together under the ribbon. Birch for healing, hazel for wisdom, oak for strength, elm for grounding, fig for love, juniper for love, maple for love, and willow—because Stiles owes everything to the willow.

“Is it done?” Derek asks, pulling him out of his trance. “Feels like it’s done.”

Stiles goes to untie the ribbon but finds it almost translucent and disintegrating under his fingers. It reveals a thick black band overlaid with tree roots bound into knots, not particularly neat but striking, and beautifully colored in places with the ribbon’s own green. The roots wind all the way around Derek’s arm and spread outside the lines of the ribbon in places, as if they’re planning to extend and grow. In between, Stiles can make out protection runes and sigils, tiny and subtle, but there.

Derek must also see them because he asks, “Does this one also gonna need blood?”

Not a bad idea, actually. “Wouldn’t hurt.”

“Does it have to be specifically blood _or_ …?” Derek wonders, and it takes a moment for Stiles to get it.

“You want me to come on your tattoo.”

“You’re not saying no,” Derek observes.

Stiles really isn’t. Magically speaking, that might be even better for the purpose of the tattoo, and it would certainly be more enjoyable. “Give me a couple hours,” he says, stretching his sore legs and wiggling his toes. “In the meantime…” He licks a stripe along Derek’s bicep, tracing the tattoo with his tongue, and reaches a hand down to run it along Derek’s cock. “We can try other things.”

Derek pushes into his palm and groans his agreement.

-

It’s late into the night when Stiles recalls his dream.

He and Derek are standing in the woods, hand in hand, a large pack he can’t see but feel standing behind the two of them.

Before them is the Nemeton, massive and intact, limbs stretching high, leaves gleaming in the sun, rustling gently with the wind.

Stiles feels whole.

He remembers and smiles.


	15. Chapter 15

# 15

> _ “Will you be very angry with me, my dear Lizzy, if I take this opportunity of saying (what I was never bold enough to say before) how much I like him. His behaviour to us has, in every respect, been as pleasing as when we were in Derbyshire. His understanding and opinions all please me; he wants nothing but a little more liveliness, and that, if he marry prudently, his wife may teach him.” _

#### Nineteen Hours

“You’re baking,” Derek says, walking into the kitchen to see what’s taking so long. “At one in the morning.”

Stiles beams at him. “I was going to make a sandwich, but then I thought—fresh scones. It’s like three ingredients, super fast, don’t worry.”

Derek leans against the doorway and lets himself flash back to watching Stiles in the kitchen last week, last month, even a year ago. It’s been a sight he’s treasured from the very first time he saw it, and it never failed to make him want things he couldn’t have.

Things he couldn’t have… back then. Now it’s his for the taking.

He wraps his arms around Stiles’ waist and presses against his back, chin hooked over his shoulder. The scent, the warmth, the feeling of home; the reality’s even more satisfying than his fantasies.

“I don’t have anywhere to be.”

“Good,” Stiles says, turning around in his arms. “Because now I kinda want to put some bacon in this. And cheddar. What do you think?”

“I think I’m marrying a baking addict.” He leans in to kiss Stiles’ lips.

“I like food,” Stiles defends himself, abandoning him to look for bacon in the fridge.

“You like feeding people,” Derek corrects him. It’s a big part of what makes Stiles the heart of any group he chooses to grace with his presence and friendship.

“That, too.” Stiles finds the bacon and holds it up in victory. “I also like bacon! Oh, you remember that ball we were talking about—the inaugural ball? They had mini bacon quiches there. Did you get to try them? They were _amazing_. We ate, like, one full tray.”

Derek takes the bacon from his hands and finds a cutting board to help. “So, while I was falling in love with you, you were falling in love with baked goods. Figures.”

Stiles chuckles, leans his cheek against Derek’s shoulder. “We have to have those at our wedding,” he says into Derek’s neck.

“Are we having a wedding?”

“Sure,” Stiles says, stifling a yawn. “If we can find that caterer.”

#### Six Days

“Ta da!”

It’s Cora who does the unveiling, but everybody’s there, standing by the side, looking excited. Derek meets Stiles’ eyes; he seems just as clueless.

“Okay,” he says, waiting for an explanation.

“It’s your wedding present,” Melissa says helpfully.

“We didn’t get married,” Stiles points out.

Cora shrugs. “Semantics.”

The cottage is beautiful, obviously Derek thinks so because he designed it, but it’s not exactly new. “I don’t get it.”

The sheriff gives them a longsuffering look. “Newlyweds need their space,” he says gruffly. “We know the house is very crowded, so we finished decorating the cottage for you.”

“Oh!” Stiles peeks inside excitedly.

“We all know Stiles is dying to have sex in the kitchen,” Isaac quips.

The sheriff and Melissa share an exasperated look, as Stiles absently replies, “That is _so_ unsanitary,” and pulls Derek through the door.

When Derek planned the cottage, he thought they’d use it as a guesthouse or if a single member of the pack ever wanted some space, so he designed it as one large room, sizable but simple. The space is now dominated by the king size bed in the middle and it’s been decorated in all whites, like a blank canvas they can make their own.

“This is really great,” Stiles is saying over his shoulder.

“Yeah, well,” Cora says. “It was self-preservation.”

Isaac snickers. The sheriff seems to have had enough. “We’ll leave you to discover it,” he says, tugging the others away.

Stiles meets Derek’s eyes with a huge grin on his face. “I _love this_ ,” he whispers enthusiastically. “Does it have a tub? I want a tub!”

Derek holds him by the shoulders and turns him towards the clawfoot tub in the corner.

Stiles groans. “We’re definitely moving here.” Then he turns around, hesitating, “We’re moving here, right? You don’t mind?”

Derek offers him a reassuring smile. “It’s perfect.” They’ll be alone and— _they’ll be alone_. That’s basically all he wants out of life lately.

“You,” Stiles says, pushing him against the wall, “are never wearing clothes in here, _ever_.”

“For god’s sake,” Cora calls from the outside, “wait until we’re out of earshot!”

“Walk faster!” Stiles yells in response.

Derek pulls him in and smothers his laugh in a kiss.

#### Eight Months

Derek enjoys weddings as a concept, but not so much the party itself. Stiles obviously knows this, as he seems to know most things about Derek these days, and he pulls himself out of Allison’s arms to come cheer him up.

“Dance with me.”

Derek hasn’t yet been able to say no to him yet. It’s been a long and wondrous eight months.

“Beautiful, right?” Stiles gestures at the garden, with the large koi pond and the lit-up glass conservatory, featuring about a million flowers.

Derek nods.

Allison’s father insisted on paying for the whole extravagant affair, trying to make some things up to his daughter, no doubt. Derek’s been impressed by his commitment, splitting up the family business, even offering restitution to the pack. They couldn’t possibly accept it, of course, just the thought of it made Derek want to throw up, but Stiles and Allison worked out a donation plan for the money, and that seemed like the best use of it.

Derek will probably never trust the man, but he can accept that he’s a distant relation to the pack now and seems to at least act like he means well.

Stiles rubs his thumb between Derek’s eyebrows, pretending to straighten out the wrinkles there. “Do I wanna know what you’re thinking about?”

“No,” Derek admits and changes the subject. “Allison looks happy.”

“She really is.”

They both turn toward the happy couple and it reminds Derek of another time they watched Scott and Allison dance. “Remember what you said about never being as happy as her?”

Stiles looks surprised that Derek remembers the conversation. But of course he does; Derek remembers everything.

“You still think that?”

Stiles grins, looks away. “You know I don’t.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop fishing,” he tells Derek, pressing a firm kiss against his lips. “And get me a glass of champagne. I’ve danced with, like, twelve people or something.”

At the table, Lydia seems ready to move on to the next event. “So, did you guys set a date yet?”

Stiles chokes on the strawberry that came with his champagne. “Date?”

“For the wedding?”

“Of…?”

Lydia huffs, her shoulders visibly drooping. “You can’t not have a wedding.”

Stiles looks to him for help, but Lydia is all his. Derek doesn’t have the first clue how to handle her.

“Isn’t it kind of redundant when we’re already bonded?” Stiles asks.

Derek kind of agrees. They registered the bond; it’s all aboveboard and official. Marriage doesn’t really add anything to their situation, other than a fancy ceremony.

Lydia leans forward, lowers her voice. “You’re supposed to be leaders in this community. People will want to congratulate you. It’s a social occasion.”

“It’s not about you,” Jackson sums up with a smirk.

“Of course not,” Stiles mutters. “Why would I even think it would be…”

Lydia narrows her eyes at him. Derek sees Stiles recoil. “Fine, geez.” He turns to Derek. “You wanna marry me for the good of the town—or something?”

Derek shrugs. “Whatever.” He doesn’t mind one way or the other.

“There,” Stiles tells Lydia. “Happy?”

Lydia does not look happy.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” he says, downing the rest of his champagne. “I’m going to find a quiet corner and make out with Derek. For the good of the town, or something.”

He grabs Derek’s hand and sets toward the trees.

#### Eleven Months

Beltane is Stiles’ first act as official pack emissary, which seems to surprise him almost as much as it does everyone else.

He’s been very vocal about his aversion to ‘parties, balls, and other assorted shindigs’ for as long as Derek has known him. It’s an aversion they actually share. But apparently there are exceptions to every despised social occasion. “Besides, Lydia really needs something to do this spring,” Stiles explains.

Derek gets it when they unveil the whole plan to him. It’s about pack alliances, building new ties, and starting traditions.

“Networking,” Lydia says. “Social capital.”

“She sounds like a motivational poster, but you get the drift,” Stiles mumbles out of her earshot.

Stiles is confident they’d get a positive response from most packs but instead of going big, he and Lydia choose to keep it small and intimate. They invite only three packs, and just a couple of members from each.

“You want meaningful connections,” she advises. “Not the bigwigs, no, you’re going to invite the next generation of leaders. It’s not about what they can do for you _today_ ; we don’t need anything today. This is about the future.”

Lydia has a scary mind for this type of stuff, and Stiles is never far behind her. Derek leaves them to it for the most part and only gets involved when directly asked to.

(“Budget,” Lydia corners him early on, and his reply, “Ask Stiles,” earns him an appreciative nod. Other than that, they mainly need his contribution on the hierarchies and dynamics of the attending packs, details on the younger members, and so on. Derek is happy to help but also ecstatic to stay out of the rest.)

What it comes together as, in the end, reminds Derek of his family’s equinox celebrations, cozy and vibrant, with friends and food and a large bonfire after dark. Stiles has surrounded the place in colorful flowers, every tree is in bloom, and the music is soft in the background, creating the perfect atmosphere for conversation. Everyone’s mingling and lounging and chatting; it’s infinitely better than anything Derek could have imagined.

Still, a full day of dealing with people is half a day too much for him and as soon as Stiles gives him the nod, he transforms and finds a quiet spot to relax.

This was their compromise. The host cannot possibly disappear (said Lydia) but in a werewolf meet-up it’s perfectly acceptable to walk around as a wolf (Stiles reasoned).

Even being a wolf can’t save him from some people though. “I always knew you were his favorite, you know,” William says, settling next to him with a beer in hand. “He’s a terrible liar.”

“Anyone I know?” Stiles approaches from behind.

“Sneaky, though,” William says to Derek, and then, to Stiles, “I was just telling your husband how you’ve spurned me and left me heartbroken.”

Stiles makes a rude sound. “He’s technically still not my husband, and _you_ are definitely not heartbroken.”

Lydia approaches with a polite smile. “Stiles, I think it’s time to hit the lights.”

“There are lights?” Erica sits next to Derek, balancing a full plate on her stomach. Isaac helps her keep it balanced. “And who’s heartbroken?”

William introduces himself with a flair. “William Henry Austin. Stiles’ old favorite.”

“Oh, you can be _my_ favorite any day.”

“You’re married,” Isaac reminds her, helpfully gesturing at her husband hanging out with Cora and her friends from Argentina. “And extremely pregnant.”

Derek feels a burst of pride at the mention of their first pack baby. Becoming a werewolf gave Erica a boost of confidence she really didn’t need, but since it led to her finally taking the leap and getting pregnant, Derek doesn’t mind the unreasonable brashness in the least.

“I know,” she says, “but look at his face.” William preens. “Look at _those eyes_.”

Derek huffs at the exaggeration. William is good-looking, sure, but he’s no Stiles.

“Oh, you’re Zoe’s brother.” Isaac holds out a hand. “Isaac. It’s great to meet you.”

Derek looks between them, takes a sniff, and wonders… but matchmaking really isn’t his forte. His own botched courtship was a full year of torture; it would be absurd for him to start meddling in other people’s love lives.

It’s hard to focus on conversation when he’s a wolf, so he drifts in and out of their chatter until Stiles is close by and the zing of his excitement coming through the bond makes Derek raise his head to locate his mate.

He finds Stiles in the middle of the clearing, near the fire, standing alone and still, eyes closed in concentration. He both watches and feels through the link as Stiles breathes, focuses, and gently stretches his magic out.

Lights come on at the heart of every tree, making people murmur and cheer; Stiles opens his eyes and smiles.

“Oh, wow,” William exclaims. “What _are_ those?”

“Will-o'-the-wisps,” Isaac tells him. They’re little blue flames, hovering among branches and dancing away when people reach for them.

“Show off,” Erica says when Stiles joins them once again. He does have the most self-satisfied smile on his face.

Stiles shrugs, leans against Derek and buries a hand in his mane.

William eyes him with exaggerated fascination. “You’ve been holding out on me. It’s rude to keep your friends in the dark about your useful talents.”

“I do love how it’s always about you,” Stiles observes, only half-serious.

“Right?” William says, nodding. “Me too.”

Derek feels Stiles’ magic pushing through his hands and a moment later, he’s holding a flower crown made up of white flowers and green leaves. Derek glares a warning, but it only serves to make his mate smile wider. “It’s tradition,” Stiles tells him, placing it gently on his head. He climbs halfway up Derek’s back and buries his face in his neck.

Derek shrugs him onto the ground and carefully settles down on top of him.

“They’re sickening,” he hears William say with wonder.

“Ugh,” Isaac says, “Try living with it.”

#### Two Years

It’s barely dawn when Stiles flies out of bed, marches out the door and into the woods. Derek is used to his eccentricities by now but walking out in his pajamas can’t be a good omen, so he follows without a word.

Stiles knows something big is happening before they even arrive at the Nemeton, his heartbeat is going crazy, but Derek only figures it out when he catches the scent. Neither of them outwardly reacts to the situation until the bundle of leaves at the base of the tree starts to cry.

“What’s this?” Stiles says, tone edged with panic. He’s rooted to the spot, unnaturally still.

Derek can’t possibly hear the Nemeton’s response without opening the link between them wide, and even then, it’s hard to translate what he’s getting into human – or wolf – terms, so he rarely bothers.

Anyway, he already knows what it is. It’s a baby. _Why_ , is the question. And _how_. And _what on earth_.

“So, you just, what—decided? I don’t get a say?”

Stiles is going to start yelling, Derek can tell. And the baby keeps crying, so he instinctively takes a couple steps closer, and then stops. He doesn’t know if he should…

“There’s such a thing called consent,” Stiles is saying, face red. “No, no—no! Just because you’re in my mind, it doesn’t mean you get to read and interpret and—and—act without consulting me!”

There’s something truly awful about listening to a helpless child cry, so Derek steps in, he has to, and—as soon as he’s close enough, he knows there’s absolutely nothing dangerous about this baby. It smells like…

He swallows against the knot in his throat. It’s safe.

“YOU DON’T GIFT SOMEONE A CHILD,” Stiles bellows into the woods. Birds take off from nearby branches. “IT’S NOT A FUCKING SCARF!”

He’s pacing hurriedly, and at the back of his mind, Derek is worrying over his tripping over a root and breaking his head open. But mostly, he wants to see the baby. He pushes the leaves apart gently, and _oh_ —

She stops crying and blinks up at him.

“Hello,” Derek says softly.

Stiles sounds like he may have lost his mind completely—

“HE’S A WOLF, HE’S ALLOWED TO FUCK IN THE WOODS!”

—but Derek can’t look away from the baby’s face. Her chubby cheeks, her tiny pouting mouth, her eyes… they’re his mother’s eyes.

He reaches into the pile and pulls her free. It feels like his heart is going to beat its way out of his chest. He’s afraid he’s going to drop her, but his hands are surprisingly steady. He brings her close, and then closer, right up against his chest, skin to skin.

She flails her hands and slaps his chest with her little palm.

Derek chuckles. She has spirit, and no wonder.

“I’m supposed to be planning my own life,” Stiles is saying. He sounds like maybe he’s talking to himself now. “There’s a time for everything!” He huffs and throws his hands up, “WE’RE NOT EVEN MARRIED YET!”

“Stiles.”

Stiles turns to him and does a literal doubletake when he sees Derek holding the baby. “Yes.”

“Give me your shirt.”

Derek never wears a shirt to bed and there’s a morning chill. She’s going to get cold.

Stiles blinks stupidly, like his brain isn’t quite working right, and then fights with his shirt for a full minute trying to pull it off. “Here.”

Derek wraps her in the soft cotton and can’t stop the rumbling sound breaking out of his chest at the combined scent of them.

“She smells like us,” he tells Stiles as an explanation, but surely Stiles already knows.

“I—I know—I didn’t—” He exhales, hands on hips, and shakes his head. “Should’ve put a fucking condom on the goddamn forest!”

Derek waits for him to calm himself before asking, “Is she… staying?”

“What—oh! _Yeah!_ She’s real. I mean, made with magic, but. She’s—she’s ours.”

Derek grins, his relief a physical thing. His arms tighten around the baby reflexively. “Okay.”

“You’re not mad?” Stiles asks, biting at his lips.

Derek is a lot of things right now but ‘mad’ doesn’t factor into it at all. “Not unless you’re thinking about naming her after a tree.”

That seems to distract Stiles from the Nemeton. “Oh,” he breathes out, intrigued. “Willow is a girl’s name.”

“Nope.” Derek starts walking towards home.

“Sequoia?”

“Over my dead body.”

“Eh, we’ll work on it,” Stiles says. “It’s not like we were _GIVEN ANY NOTICE!_ ”

“Let it go, Stiles.”

“Well, they can’t decide—

“We’ll just leave daddy to his ranting…” Derek tells the baby.

Stiles freezes at the word _daddy_ and then has to run to catch up with them. “It’s just that… we had a plan.”

“She’s here now; she’s the plan.”

Stiles peeks at her over Derek’s shoulder. “That’s a pretty cute plan.”

She really is.

They walk in silence, broken only by distant bird calls and the baby’s random gurgles. Stiles turns to him at the door of the cottage and asks, “You wanna go to the courthouse sometime and get that marriage thing sorted?”

Derek shrugs. “Whatever.”

They’ll get around to it eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now go read Pride and Prejudice. Seriously.


End file.
